Yahoo and Google’s ongoing rivalry turned to video search last week, with each company touting more searchable content and marquee partnerships, CNET News reported.
Yahoo released a finalized version of its video search engine, after five months of beta testing. It also announced alliances with CBS News, MTV, Reuters and others to include their video clips within its searchable database.
Google announced a string of new liaisons with TV programmers, including the Discovery Channel and CNN. The company is still continuing public tests of Google Video, which launched in January.
Yahoo will allow video creators to send links of their content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) for inclusion in its database. Google has also introduced a program in which independent and professional video producers can upload their shows into Google Video. (But those shows have yet to become searchable.)
Broadband adoption in U.S. households is driving consumers’ appetite for watching video online. And search technology is quintessential to sifting through what is a mounting array of video available over the Internet and Internet Protocol (IP) networks, which connect to television, handheld devices, PCs and other consumer electronics.
Yahoo, Google, Blinkx, ShadowTV and others are jockeying to bring consumers the most useful service to locate and watch video online. But many of them are also aiming to bridge the Web with TV so that consumers will eventually be able to search for and watch digital video via TV set-top boxes, PC or a mobile device.
