I never liked playing leapfrog as a child, but I do enjoy watching Yahoo! and Google play. After Yahoo!'s December release of Yahoo! Video, Google has come out with its unique perspective on searching TV content. The differences between the two are immense—so vast, in fact, is the gulf between Yahoo!'s aptly-named offering and Google's new entry that Google should probably rename the service. As of now, Google Video is all about TV, and would be better named Google TV. Anyway, here it is.

Google Video's advertised mandate is this: "Google Video enables you to search a growing archive of televised content – everything from sports to dinosaur documentaries to news shows." Google accomplishes this by indexing closed-captioning transcripts. Then, it delivers excerpted results that match your keywords, accompanied by thumbnail still shots of the corresponding program. This experiment is original and interesting, but frustrating and ineffectual in practice. Any comparison of Google Video to Yahoo! Video is damaging to Google, which is perhaps the best reason to change the site's name. As Google TV the service would be unique. As Google Video it is embarrassing.

Most embarrassing is the evident ploy of naming it Google Video simply to keep pace with Yahoo! Video, relevance be damned. I thought Google was all about relevance. I wouldn't call this disingenuous gambit "evil," exactly, but neither does it conform to the Google ethos as I understand it.

Search for david letterman at both sites. Yahoo! delivers 238 results—actual video clips available from disparate servers. Within two clicks of most search results, you are watching a video. Now over to Google Video, where 138 cryptic and unfriendly search results include text excerpts and accompanying thumbnails. One click takes you to a search result page for that TV program, and it includes every transcript match of your keywords. More thumbnails, most of which are irrelevant. No further clicks are available.

What does Google say about this constraining lack of interactivity? "We are working with content owners to improve this service by providing additional enhancements such as playback." Well, umm … yeah! Playback would be good! I recognize the difficulties involved: Google is not scavenging the Web for unauthorized video clips of the sort Yahoo! allows into its results. In that light, it is unfair to criticize this engine. But for goodness sake, it's called Google Video. Even changing the name to Google TV would yield disappointment. Google Closed-Caption Transcripts, maybe?

Anyway, I can see this immature engine developing into a worthy research tool. If Google builds up the content, and includes detailed source information for quote attribution, this thing could take its place next to Lexis Nexis and Proquest (and Google Scholar if that service matures) as a major research destination.