John Battelle scoops, Google will shortly launch an in-browser video playback feature based on the open source VLC media player. This is the logical next step for Google's video search and upload function, which began taking uploads back in April.
The videos tagged free will be made available for real time streaming through the VLC player. The company also intends to make its VLC code available to the open source community as part of their Google code project. The video will be searchable via the meta data provided by the submission process (no, there's no PageRank for video, yet). This is the start of something big.
-For one, it's clear this will be integrated with the Google payment program.
- Secondly, this is a big deal for many institutions which do not have the ability to host and stream their own video, but would very much like to get their message out.
- Third, this is clearly a shot across Microsoft's bow. The Windows Media Player is a standalone application, rife with its own DRM and entanglements with Hollywood.
- Fourth, this will help the spread of an alternative universe for video distribution and playback, one independent of the walled garden business model in which video is currently locked.
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