planetc1.com-news

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a California state budget on Friday that was nearly 2 months overdue. Video news coverage of the event appearing on Google owned YouTube has been embedded to the Google News homepage, allowing visitors to Google News to view video coverage without leaving the news page.

This is the first example I have seen of news coverage in the form of video appearing along with aggregated news results. I reported last week on the first comments I began seeing appearing in Google News (Comments Appear in Google News) but I had not yet witnessed any video coverage, until today.

As you can see in this screenshot, the video link takes 2nd position after the article headline, with the top story being provided by the San Diego Union Tribune. The video is coming from KCRA TV, which are the call letters for KCRA Sacramento. The television stations YouTube profile can be viewed here... user=kcratv

Clicking on the + or the headline that reads "Video: Schwarzenegger Signs Budget, Trims Spending" launches YouTubes flash based video player, which streams video directly in the browser screen. The embedded player functions similar to the way it does on other web sites including embedded video. Visitors on the news page can play and pause video, turn volume up or down, click through to YouTube (opens in a new window), and close the player, without having to leave the Google News homepage.

This is one more example of Google's Universal Search feature in action. This is a win-win for Google. Users get to view video within the page, potentially keeping the viewer on the Google News homepage longer. If a viewer decides to click through to YouTube, they'll be directed there inside a new browser tab or window, and will find themselves on another Google owned property. Add to that Google's introduction of 10 second advertising in YouTube videos and you've got one more avenue for Google to display video overlay ads.

Subscribe RSS: