YouTube, Google Video and the future of Internet video

When Google bought YouTube for the ridiculous sum of $1.6 billion back in October, more than a few of us were left wondering what designs the Internet giant had for the video site--not to mention its existing offering, Google Video. Well, it's been a few months and details are finally starting to trickle out of Mountain View. It appears that Google Video will be repositioned as a video search engine, indexing content from YouTube as well as other sites on the web. "Google Video will become even more comprehensive as it evolves into a service where users can search for the world's online video content, irrespective of where it may be hosted," the company said in a statement. As for the company's red-headed stepchild, YouTube, monetization may be coming sooner than you think. Google "envision[s] most user-generated and premium video content being hosted on YouTube," suggesting that the Google Video storefront may soon disappear in favor of paid content on YouTube. It's certainly an interesting idea--YouTube already has a sizable audience (and that's precisely what Google paid for) and if even a small portion of that audience can be convinced to buy downloadable video, YouTube could soon rival the iTunes Store for online video sales. I, for one, welcome our new multicolored Internet video overlords.

For more on Google's video plans:
- see this post on the Google blog
- and this Ars Technica article