Day of the Video

Looks like the big news today is that Google bought YouTube . . . as usual, I found out about it by reading other blogs rather than the Google press releases I signed up for. However, there were a couple other press releases that I haven't seen mentioned yet. Google has also made arrangements with Sony and Warner to license music videos. They'll be available to watch for free, and revenue will come from advertising. From the article:

WMG will be able to monetize its music video content online by
leveraging Google's extensive advertiser network of hundreds of
thousands of advertisers. WMG's music video catalog will be
sponsored by Google advertisers, making it free to all users. The
resulting generated advertising revenue will be shared by WMG and
Google. Besides providing ad-supported content on Google Video, select
WMG's music videos will immediately be available for purchase as
downloads on Google Video for $1.99.

This doesn't affect me much since I don't watch music videos, but I found it interesting that three major business deals concerning Google's internet video business were announced today. Note again that all of these deals have to do with Google's "real" business, advertising.