Posted by : Jonathan Thaw on Jun 03, 2006 - 11:49 PM General

Google Inc., the most-used Internet search engine, is introducing a feature that lets people instantly post videos to the Web in a bid to topple market leader YouTube Inc.
The Google site will let users submit clips and then provide a Web link for the video that they can share with friends, said Hunter Walk, 32, a Google product manager.
Watching user-generated videos on the Web is becoming more popular as more people buy high-speed connections and sites such as YouTube and Google Video make it easier to post video clips.
Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., will also host a page with clips from Universal Pictures' movie "The Break-Up" and allow users to add clips about their own experiences, said Walk.
"Consumer-generated video is rapidly evolving," said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner Inc., which is based in Stamford, Conn. YouTube and Google are looking for more content to attract users as well as advertisers, Weiner said.
YouTube had 12.5 million users in April, compared with 9.5 million at Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Video, 9 million at News Corp.'s MySpace video site and 7.3 million at Google Video, according to researcher Nielsen//NetRatings.
YouTube was the fastest-growing site over the past six months, with users growing more than 11- fold.

Google released its video site in January 2005 and four months later added a feature to allow people to upload clips. The company started offering TV shows from CBS Corp. at the beginning of this year, including "Survivor" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" that cost $1.99 to download.

Before this feature was added, Google Video users wanting to upload their own content needed to download additional software. Now they'll just need to go to an Internet site, Walk said.

YouTube, a privately held company in San Mateo, Calif., started testing its service in May last year and formally released the site in December. The company's investors include Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm that also invested in Google. YouTube's users submit more than 35,000 videos each day.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., and owner of the No. 3 Internet search engine, plans to add a feature code-named "Warhol" later this year that will let users submit videos.


Buffalo News
By Jonathan Thaw BLOOMBERG NEWS
Wednesday, May 31, 2006 (Originally Published: 5/29/2006)

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