Google Video Player

Google to launch an in browser video player, which will likely be compatible with their upcomming payment program.

The recent issue of Business 2.0 had an article about the resurgance of Akamai, and you have to wonder how far Google will span their business model with how cheap they store and serve data.

If Google is willing to store and stream unlimited free data just to have access to it that is going to be a hard for others to compete with.

If Google gets first mover advantage in multimedia search (due to hosting content free and setting up the first viable micropayment network) then they further solidify their market dominating position in general web search while bringing in another revenue stream.

Danny Sullivan posted a brief comparison between the new Google video offering to some of the other video products on the market. Danny said:

The key difference in what Google Video will offer compared to other services is inline playback. Rather than having to depend on having a particular plug-in for a particular video format -- which your browser will often annoyingly opens in a separate window -- Google Video will provide its own lightweight plug-in to display video right within the results.