InsideGoogle

Google Video Has Interface Overhaul

Search Engine Watch has noticed that Google Video no longer has buttons helping users find viewable video, buttons which were added in July.

This all comes as part of a major interface change to Google Video. Videos can now be viewed as either a grid or a list. The grid displays 15 results in three columns with large thumbnails and a little info (the title, source and date). The list view displays more info, including transcrips excerpts, the name of the person talking in the video (if applicable) and the length of the video. Additionally, the grid view appears to contain only playable video, a backhand way of getting at the goods without the missing radio buttons.

Examples:
Grid View
List View

The two views are switched by an lv=0 operator in the URL for the grid view and lv=1 for list view. Interestingly, the playable:true operator to show only playable video, and the playable:false operator for transcript content, the same operators activated by the old radio buttons, still work perfectly, even in the grid view.

Examples:
Playable:true in List View
Playable:false in List View
Playable:true in Grid View
Playable:false in Grid View

More good news: Some episodes of Google Current, Google’s short news program from Al Gore’s Current TV network, have been uploaded to Google Video. It appears Google did not put them up, since there are no transcripts, but the videos are there just the same.

The latest episode of Current that has been uploaded is a week old, and right over here. I enjoyed it, surprisingly. There are penis jokes, nazi jokes, and quotes from blogs and rumors all over the internet. In other words, it’s the news if I were doing it. Great!

I think I’ll start posting reviews and links to any Current episodes that make their way to Google Video. Does anybody think they’d like to see this?

October 1st, 2005 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Google Video, General | 3 comments