Saturday, January 07, 2006

Google launches video-on-demand and free software pack

Google has announced piling into two major trends driving the tech industry currently. The first is online video and TV and the second is free software offered over the internet (often known as Web2.0). They have announced (coming soon) the Google Video Store with content partners such as CBS and they have announced and launched the Google Pack.

With Google Video Store, which will be at at video.google.com consumers will pay $1.99 to download and view, for an unlimited time, episodes from last season's "Survivor" series, as well as episodes of 300 older TV programs like "I Love Lucy,".

Also for $1.99, people will be able to rent, for 24 hours, recent episodes of popular TV series from CBS like "NCIS," "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "The Amazing Race,". National Basketball Association games shown on TV can be downloaded for permanent purchase within one day of broadcast for $3.95. Classic NBA games will also be available.

For now consumers will have to pay for the service with their credit card, but Google is apparently looking into ad based video and TV presumably for free. I hope so, this has to be the future.

Thanks to Google's online payment and accounts system and thanks to their on-demand platform Google can circumvent the two main challenges that have halted the progress of video-on-demand; effective monetization and copyright protection.

Google has also announced Google Pack, a software package that includes homegrown programs like Google Talk, the Google Toolbar, the Google Desktop, Google Alerts and the Google Video Player, as well as third-party software including the Firefox browser, anti-spyware from LavaSoft, Adobe PDF Reader 7, Norton's antivirus program, Trillian Instant Messenger and RealPlayer.

What has impressed me most about the software pack isn't just that the software is geniunely useful and a cluster that makes sense for many PC users, but mostly that it is available now, simple to download and free. Now Google have the tesbed and starting point to perhaps do more meaningful offerings such as Google Office to compete with MS Office. Who wants to bet they do this by year end?!

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