Yahoo, Google Expand Searches
Search-engine rivals Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. will open a new front in their Internet battle today when they plan to unveil dueling efforts to let users hunt through the content of television shows.
Google Video will let people look for text in the closed-captioning of television shows on PBS, C-SPAN, Fox News, ABC and other channels. Google has been recording thousands of hours of programming with its own equipment and hopes to eventually let people watch the content through Google Video.
Yahoo Video Search, which has been available in an experimental form since last month, scours the Web for video clips. And Yahoo plans to announce today that its video search engine will soon include news clips from Bloomberg and the BBC that are indexed by closed-captioning.
Although it’s unclear how these efforts -- and others pursued by smaller players in the online world -- will fare, many say video searches could provide an entirely new way for people to find, and view, television programming.
“Just think of the number of hits these folks from Google get every day,” said Brian Lamb, founder and chief executive of C-SPAN, one channel participating in Google Video. “We’re not really sure where they’re going to go with this, but we’re all ears.”
Yahoo and Google have taken very different approaches.
Yahoo, which provides a wide array of services on its website, offers people the ability to search for links to videos posted on the Internet and has made some video content, including music videos and film trailers, available on Yahoo.com. Yahoo also offers ways for publishers to submit their videos for inclusion.
As for Google Video, it will start small, as did Google Print, an effort launched last year to digitize books and make them available on the Web.
The two services together highlight the company’s drive to put more of the world online, allowing Web surfers to eventually “Google” almost any kind of information as easily as a Web page.
Google’s search service works by archiving the closed-captioning text, which broadcasters provide for the deaf. Users can read excerpts from shows that turn up in a search, see still images and find out when the program will air again.
Google Video won’t play video clips -- yet. By initially taking a conservative approach with the service, analysts said, Google appears to be showing off what’s possible in video search while trying to avoid scaring television executives who fear that the Internet will siphon away viewers.
Eventually, though, Google will try to get permission to show clips. That could spur a broader move to put TV programs online, much as Apple Computer Inc. made music downloads legitimate through its iTunes Music Store, analysts said.
“It’s their effort to demonstrate to the studio bosses that they want to work with them,” said Charlene Li, an analyst with Forrester Research.
With high-speed connections linking more people to the Web, Google and Yahoo aren’t the only companies looking to help people find and watch video clips.
America Online Inc. also is searching the Web for links to videos to include in its search engine, along with start-ups like Blinkx and IceRocket.com. But Google is taking a different approach. Its engineers in December began digitally recording shows on PBS, C-SPAN, Fox News, ABC and other channels. Google stored the shows on its vast computer network and indexed them through closed-captioning.
Although Google could have added those television clips to its search engine, analysts said, the company wanted to avoid copyright battles with producers. So it limited the results of Google Video searches to text excerpts and still images, hoping to send a message to television executives that the popular search engine could steer more viewers to their shows.
“It’s diplomatic,” said Gary Stein, a senior analyst with Jupiter Research. “If they went full bore and said, ‘Click here to watch “Good Morning America,” ’ it would take an industry that’s already uneasy with their content being available online and make them even more uneasy. Now that they’ve got something out there, they can continue negotiations.”
The TV industry has reason to be nervous. There is no shortage of TV programs available for downloading on the Internet -- and the vast majority of them are bootlegged. The most popular TV bootlegs available through file-sharing programs such as BitTorrent and eDonkey are today’s hit shows, some of which are shared by tens of thousands of people, according to BayTSP, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based firm that tracks online piracy.
“You can find every television show imaginable, ranging from old ‘Star Trek’ episodes to things that haven’t even hit the TV yet,” said BayTSP Chief Executive Mark Ishikawa. “And it’s a growing problem.”
Google is trying to create a legal way to connect Web surfers with programs, so it’s urging rights holders to make more videos available online -- just like it’s doing with book publishers in Google Print. The incentive is creating more pages to plaster with ads and more loyalty to its search engine.
For example, Google Video will let someone planning a trip to Napa Valley seek restaurant and hotel recommendations not just on Web pages but also in travel shows on TV.
But Stein, the analyst, noted that Google’s current approach would not serve the main need of Web surfers looking for video clips -- that is, the video itself. People searching for video footage of last month’s tsunami, for example, didn’t want transcripts of news reports -- they wanted to watch the water rush in to better understand the devastation.
Video clips are coming, said Jennifer Feikin, director of Google Video. But though Google considers text excerpts and still images from shows fair game legally, she said the company wouldn’t offer video playback without getting permission from the people who own the rights to the shows.
“Of paramount importance to Google is respecting the interest of copyright holders,” she said. “We take a very conservative approach to how much content of other people’s we will put in our service.”
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Times staff writer Jon Healey contributed to this report.
