Google set to push play on Video Store
Get your goggle box fix online... Google announced a service on Friday that will let people rent or buy downloadable videos online. — The online behemoth said Google Video Store will be "available soon" at video.google.com.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands mid-announcement-week for Google: the January 5 Wall Street Journal report had already flagged plans to let consumers buy videos from major content partners, and the same week the company rolled out Google Pack, a downloadable software bundle pitched squarely against Microsoft's desktop offerings. Silicon.com's piece confirms the storefront itself — Google Video Store, renting and selling downloadable video at video.google.com.
The timing matters because it caps a noisy stretch of Google expansion speculation: reports of a low-priced Google PC sold through Wal-Mart were publicly denied by both companies on January 4, and Google PR chief David Krane separately shot down talk of a 'Google Cube.' Against that backdrop, the Video Store is the concrete, confirmed piece of the consumer push — a real product where the PC rumors were smoke.
First-order effects
- Content partners signed to the store gain a new retail shelf at video.google.com, with Google handling rental and purchase transactions for downloadable video from day one.
- Consumers get a buy-or-rent alternative for online video inside the site they already use for search, folding media purchasing into Google's existing front door.
Second-order effects
- Pairing the store with Google Pack puts Google in competition with Microsoft on two desktop fronts at once — default applications and entertainment spending — raising the cost for Microsoft of ignoring either.
- Rights holders now have another buyer-negotiating counterweight: a storefront backed by Google's traffic lets content owners test whether audiences will pay for downloads outside established channels.
Third-order effects
- If paid downloads convert, Google crosses from advertising intermediary to direct retailer of digital goods — the same instinct behind its quiet classified-style ad experiment in the Chicago Sun-Times, suggesting a company systematically probing which non-search businesses its reach can carry.
- Every major content owner that signs on makes paid digital distribution more of a seller's market, weakening the hold of whichever incumbent retailer currently sets terms for downloadable video.
The trend: Google is widening from search-driven advertising into selling digital goods directly, testing how far its distribution reach converts into retail revenue.