Reuters reports that AOL plans to expand their video service in a test beginning today.

Before, looking at what AOL is announcing today, let’s review the past few years of AOL Video Search.

+ AOL currently offers an impressive video search service from across the web. It launched in beta last June. AOL also acquired both SingingFish (2003) and Truveo (2005) search and crawling technology.

+ AOL Offers In2Tv that allows users to view online complete “classic” 70’s and 80’s television shows like Dynasty and Welcome Back Kotter. This service launched in winter 2006.

+ In 2005 AOL began a trial called AOL Hi-Q Video allowing users to download high quality (”DVD like”) content and then view offline. In2TV now offers some Hi-Q downloads. Direct to AOL Hi-Q.

In the past two weeks, AOL announced even more closed captioning for more of its video content including CNN material.

Worth noting that with the AOL/Google deal announced last December, Google and AOL would:

[Collaborate] in video search and showcasing AOL’s premium video service within Google Video.

In May, we posted about a link to AOL Video on the Google Video home page. However, when we checked today, it was not visible for us.

OK, that’s the past year. With that background, let’s review what today’s announcement is all about:

+ New Video Portal Beta Coming Later This Week. Look for the beta site here.
Content will be organized into 45 “channels.”

+ Users will be able to stream content, download material, and have the “ability to purchase and download full-length content that can be viewed on multiple devices and PCs, online or offline; and access to millions of music videos, news clips, movie trailers, full length TV shows, and more.”
In other words, AOL is going to play with Google, CinemaNow, MovieLink, Guba.com, and others for viewing new content online and off. The fact that content (we need to learn precisely what content) will be viewable offline and with many devices. The news release does not specifically mention iPods.

+ AOL is getting into the user-created video-hosting space joining YouTube, Google, Guba, and MANY others. The service will be called UnCut. How many more services will we see? How many more do we need? What’s interesting is that AOL is launching their own service versus piggybacking off of their deal with Google. Btw, the UnCut service is currently listed on the AOL Beta page but it’s only available at the present time for AOL subscribers. Btw, the announcement offers no info about how AOL plans to “police” UnCut for copyright issues, adult material, etc.

+ An Interactive Programming Guide (featuring paid and ad-supported content) across the web for video content. The guide will feature clips from about a dozen services (including A&E, Nick at Nite, Spike TV, TV Land, and VH1).

+ Open API coming this fall.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 31st, 2006 at 12:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.