Nathan Weinberg at InsideGoogle has this to say about the Google Video launch:

So, the Google Video Store is live, and, ehh. Nothing special.
[ stuff deleted ]
One thing we know about Google: It doesn’t bother them if they get it wrong the first time. Hopefully they’ll fix this one faster than they usually do.

Botched. Totally botched.

Next time, tell us how you really feel Nathan.

But in the middle of that [ deleted stuff ] was a really fun section, proposing an auction / popularity based pricing model:

Even better, I would have just used a bids-based system, like Google AdWords uses. Except, instead of prices set automatically by top bids, it would be set by views. The prices would all start at $1.99, and rise and fall based on how many people view the video. If the video is unpopular, the system would lower the price a little to see if it improved overall revenue, while if it is popular, it would go up in price, dropping back down if the new price turned off too many buyers.

Now that would be cool. How come no one seems to be copying the AdWords auction + relevance market model for digital goods besides ads and leads? Seems ripe.

¶ 1/16/2006