Here's an interesting tidbit that came out of today's We Media conference: Google's next step with video will be to facilitate those who want to charge for it. Makes sense. But it's a big change for the search giant -- pointing its users via search results to online content that has a price tag for the first time (other than via its paid contextual text ads).
Jennifer Feikin, director of Google Video, said during a panel presentation that the company's mission is, of course, about enabling access to a world of information. And to continue to evolve in that mission, Google will begin to index video that people may have to pay for in order to view.
So, perhaps the future will find Google indexing other paid content, as well. That would be a nice thought to news publishers who put their content behind a pay wall. Wouldn't it be nice for publishers who want to sell niche content to have Google's help! (That's just conjecture, of course.) If this is its direction, then publishers should be sure to set up systems to sell content piecemeal, and not just as part of a subscription service.
This change also is significant in hinting at Google's future revenue model. Most of the company's massive revenues have come from contextual search ads (AdWords and AdSense). Sounds like a shift is coming, where some chunk of its money could come from referral fees or commissions on content sales.
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=90101
This could be HUGE for the porn industry especially VOD and PPV providers.
Although, at the same time, i cant help but wonder if the search engine giant is growing itself a little to quickly.
Regards,
Lee
