Google adds playback to video search

When Google expanded their video search function to include user-uploadable videos, many of us wondered exactly where this video search thing was going. When you combine yesterday's announcement that Google Video is offering an in-browser video playback feature for viewing video search results with the fact that you can choose to offer your uploaded content for a fee, the direction becomes much more clear. If Hollywood won't offer video on demand, then Google will. But before I break out the crystal ball, let's go over how the video service works.

According to multiple published reports (e.g. PC Mag, among others), user-uploaded videos are screened for copyrighted content and adult content, neither of which Google wants in the free portion of the video database at this time. The uploading process also has options in place to allow users to charge for access to the video that they upload, but there's not yet any way for them to do so. Eventually, Google's recently announced online payment infrastructure that will almost certainly be used to charge video search users for playing non-free video content.