Google to launch Online Video Playback

John Battelle confirmed that Google will launch today an online in-browser video playback feature; this means that you’ll be able to playback video files from Google natively in the browser without the need for external video Player, like Winamp or Windows Media Player.

This feature will be based on the open-source VLC media player, which is rumored to be available to the open source community as part of their Google code project.

This will go nicely along other services like video search and video upload, according to John the service will be used first to allow users to easily playback freely available video files uploaded by other users, and later it will be used to playback video purchased from Google via the upcoming Google Payment System.

What is the importance of this new feature?
These are my early thoughts:

-This represents yet another assault from Google on a Microsoft’s product, this time it’s Windows Media Player, another battle in the Media War, the most important war in the next decade, forget Operating systems or web search, Media is where the real money lies.

-Confirms my earlier predictions here and there about Google Plan to move all applications from Computer-based to Web-based, in advance for its WebOS or its Unified Interface for all your needs.

-Another step in Google’s direction to depend on the open-source community to further develop its products, and in my opinion it’s one of the wisest choices Google has made recently, as open-source community proved many times how far they can take a product (Firefox) and how much features they can add to a product for free.

This is only the beginning, no one can predict where this product will go and how will it be used in the future, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

Technorati Tags: , Google, Microsoft, Media, Video, Playback, Player, WMP, WebOS, Open Source, Search, Upload