Some news I saw today reminded me of another conversation with Eric, one that had to do with Google and personal video. I asked him what problem Google might tackle next. Here’s a tidbit from my upcoming book:
By all means, do tell, I urged him. What might you build next? “We understand that video is the next holy grail,” Schmidt replied. “How many camcorder tapes do you have?”
I answered that I had no idea, but a lot, at least a box full. “If the average reasonably high income person had a hundred each, that’s millions and millions of tapes,” Schmidt said. “That certainly sounds like an unsolved problem.”
So is that it? The future of Google is – indexing your old video collection? Somehow, I figured Schimdt was being a bit disingenuous.
Not exactly. According to Paid Content, today at the National Cable Show Larry Page announced that “the company is about to launch a test of personal video submissions.” More: “We don’t know what we’re going to get,” he added after the session. “It’s kind of the long tail of video content.” Also from Paid Content: Google Guys Go to the National Show.
Update: Cnet reports.
This sounds a heck of a lot like what Vimeo is doing already. If you haven’t tried it yet, definitely check it out. Completely random, but endlessly engaging.