Google today launched its Google Video service, adding another beta product to its already busy product development schedule.

Google Video searches the subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired (in the United States refered to as "closed captions") for keywords, presenting the user with a transcript from the show and video still image.

Future versions will also offer the user to watch the actual footage.

Google will have a hard time making money from the search part of the business, because content owners probably won't allow the company to put up advertisements next to search results.

But the company in the future expects to make money from hosting or delivering the video content, product manager John Piscitello told vnunet.com: "We think that we can work with the content owners to figure out the right business model for delivering video content to the users."

Google has a long history of betas sitting in its product pipeline. The most notorious ones are the News.Google news portal and the Froogle price comparison service.

26 Jan 2005