Playing Around with Google Video
Google Video provides an easy way to search for text in a wide variety of videos. Sadly, until recently, none of these videos could be watched. For the first time today, however, I found that when searching Google Video you can opt to view only videos that are 'playable videos.' When watching a playable video you can start at a particular 'Highlight' point (which appears to be various 30 second intervals, like from the beginning, from 30 seconds in, from 1 minute in, and so on). The video is streamed directly into the browser requiring a plugin that you must download. What I found annoying, however, is that both in FireFox and Internet Explorer, if I was watching a movie and also doing a lot of 'Internet trafficking' - downloading a large file, sending an email with a large attachment, downloading podcasts through iTunes, etc. - the video would just stop. There'd be no indication of whether it was buffering or just waiting out the packed connection to the 'Net. Additionally, even when the extra traffic died down, the video did not continue along playing. It's as if it got too flustered and stopped altogether.
The premise of Google Video is neat, and I imagine that the goal here is to expand Google Video to allow content providers to utilize Google's services to sell pay-per-view access, with Google taking a small percentage off the top of each transaction. At this point in time I don't think there's any pay-per-view functionality built-in to Google Video, but I'd be surprised if we didn't see something akin to that in the near future. But you don't need to be a big shot content provider to get your video added to Google Video - currently anyone can upload their videos to Google, enabling them to be viewed by the world. This, of course, can be a good and bad thing, as your average videographer is probably about as talented at filming as I am at giving birth.
While I haven't spent too much time purusing Google Video, I have, in the short time, found a couple of cool videos that I have watched in part or plan to watch at a later date, one such one being free throw instructions by Rick Barry. Rick Barry was the second best free throw shooter in the history of the NBA, along with being a pretty talented player in most other respects, too. What makes Rick particularly interesting is that his free throw shooting style is absolutely unique - he shoots his shots from the charity stripe underhanded, and he wonders why others don't do the same today. (Rick, here's why: they don't want to look silly. Yes, appearance is more important than winning. See White Men Can't Jump for a more eloquent expression of this sentiment.)