Yahoo! Beats Google in this round

VIDEO Search.

YES!

Wired News: “But until recently, internet users who don’t patronize peer-to-peer sites had few options for tracking down video content outside of entering a query in a standard search box. Large net portals and a handful of smaller sites are looking to change that. In recent weeks, Yahoo, Google and MSN have each rolled out services designed to make it easier to upload or locate video online. The portals’ rollouts come as a handful of startups and independent film sites are creating tools to make putting video online nearly as simple as publishing text. Citing forecasts it commissioned from AccuStream iMedia Research, Yahoo said net users are expected to stream more than 21 billion videos in 2005, up from 14.2 billion last year.”

Yahoo! has added more media sources for its video search, including CBS News, MTV, the Discovery Channel and The Food Network. “We want to be the place to go whenever people are trying to find on-line video,” Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo’s director of media, said. Yahoo’s major rival, Google (GOOG), ofcourse, is also testing its own video search tool.

Key Rhetorical Question: Who understands the content game better? Semel or Schmidt?

Monetizing Video content is inherently more difficult than Text because the KeyWord AD phenomenon that has served Google well in the Text-centric search world, will not be as effective in Video. The simple and “algorithm” oriented Text-search paradigm does not work in the Video world. Google’s strength is in algorithms. But as it grows up, algorithms will not suffice. (Not to mention the fact that Google’s weakness is in its bad attitude, that even their customer communications carry …)

Key thought-provoking question: What will?