TechnoCloud

Google have used their blog to reveal more about the proposed direction and integration of YouTube and Google Video.

Far from killing the golden goose that is YouTube’s audience, YouTube is to remain its own identity, but with increasing use of Google’s monetisation tools. YouTube delivers the traffic, Google monetises it.

Naturally, Google Video will start including more results from YouTube, although Google will retain its catchall independence by adding as many sources of video as possible. How long before video is added to the hallowed homepage tabs in the UK along with images, groups, news, etc.? (Update: it is already in the US)

Interestingly with video content proving increasingly pervasive online, Google Adsense are running an Adsense video test as it attempts along with many others to find the sweet spot in terms of monetising video often played outside the host site through embedded media players such as YouTube’s.

More about this on the Adsense blog.

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Another online conversion tool has launched - Hey!Watch.  Unlike Zamzar, this tool is video only, but they’ve used RSS and a RESTful API to provide automation capability.

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No, not Weird Science 2, but instead Google has invited contributors to submit their own 3D ’super models’ to appear in Google Earth.

You build a 3D model of your chosen building in Google SketchUp, geo-locate it, upload it to the 3D Warehouse and then open up Google Earth to see if it’s made the cut.

An interesting ’open source’ way to expand the Google Earth offering using the power of crowds, as well as increase the loyalty of the contributors.

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Another day, another social network announces more mobile functionality. This time, US giant Facebook joins in the fun, even if many of the services were already available.

Joining in the push to get into the mobile space along with fellow heavyweights MySpace and Bebo, the enhanced Facebook service allows those with access and the required handset to surf their profile, upload photos and notes and send and receive Facebook texts. (Update: now Google’s orkut is getting in on the act).

The Facebook blog does make an interesting point about the connection between social networks and the mobile industry:

Facebook was invented to make sharing information with your friends easier and better. Mobile phones were invented for pretty much the same reason. People needed an easier and better way to get in touch with each other, and mobile phones made it happen.

So, a natural partnership it seems? Certainly the me-too race is on to ensure that no large social network is left behind when it comes to mobile, even if the strength of the revenue streams are as yet uncertain.

2007 is already proving a big year for mobile with Apple’s (or is it Cisco’s ;)) iPhone and the likes of Google, Yahoo and YouTube all getting in on the act with a series of services and partnerships. 2007 may well be the year when we find which services stick, before 2008 is the year when they start to pay.

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Note to self to check out Ookles when it launches in early 2007. The details are sketchy at the moment, but they claim to be another entrant into the facial recognition field alongside the impressive Riya, whose ecommerce search engine, Like.com, I featured back in 2006.

Initially the site will focus on photo storage, but video and podcast storage are promised later. It will be interesting to see if they apply their facial recognition technology to video search as well as photo search and how well it actually might work - no easy task. Audio recognition is an easier problem to address, with several tools already available, including Pluggd.

The site is expected to be built using oh-so-web-2.0 Ajax and will also boast automated album creation, handy if you’re trying to copy across years worth of personal media.

Expect to see more of these services as the explosion in multimedia content on the web continues.

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