Yesterday, the offical Google blog announced that, contrary to rumors, Google Video will soldier on and will not will be incorporated into YouTube. But that doesn't mean the evil geniuses that run both outfits plan on having their two children compete for viewers. Instead, Google Video will now include YouTube clips for user searches. In other words, Google Video will essentially become a search engine for the YouTube library.

The effort is part of the company's efforts to differentiate the two similar sites that it operates. As the monthly audience for Google's service is far larger than YouTube's, the addition of YouTube's clips to the video search service will "dramatically increase video viewing on the Web," Google Vice President David Eun is quoted as saying in USA Today.

Phil Leigh, an analyst at Inside Digital Media, says the Google move is significant because "so many more people go to Google every day" than YouTube.

"Most of us search for text and websites now, but eventually, we'll be getting to video, and Google is making sure they become the go-to place for video," he says.

Rivals Yahoo and AOL have separate video search engines as well. But neither link to the Web's most popular source of video clips, YouTube.

Additionally, a Washington Post article about the move today goes into a little more depth, analyzing how video search engines are working on refining the parameters of their searches.

If done well, video search could open up a new market of online advertising or sales, analysts say. Today, some companies are using video search as a platform to sell banner or text ads placed next to the video clip. Others are experimenting with video clips as a way of pushing sales of downloadable or streaming TV shows. Clips that become popular on the Web are even generating interest among corporate sponsors that want to be associated with them.

Eventually, online video search will be the way consumers access on-demand video programming on their TV sets, some analysts say.


And we doubt anyone will be complaining that the existence of Google Video as a user-generated video site will soon be a thing of the past, considering that the site's current top 100 videos are these earth-shattering masterpieces.