I have to say I prefer YouTube over Google Video, although the audio tends to be out of sync with the video, it's hard to locate the gems from all the crap, a lot of the comments are "if you liked that then check out this video" spams, and you can't download the videos for offline viewing.

Here's why I think YouTube rocks:

• It's developed a large, active community of users who comment on videos, rate videos, become friends, create favorites and playlists, etc.
• The way you can embed videos into your blog or site (see example below) is really well done
• Videos can have tags associated with them
• It's so easy to get sucked in to watch more videos once you're in there, through Related Videos, Playlists, Director Videos, Most Viewed, Top Rated, Most Discussed, Top Favorites, Most Linked, Recently Featured, Most Recent and Random

I'm not alone in my opinion that YouTube has Google Video beat. The Church of the Customer blog offers up 10 reasons why YouTube is better than Google Video, which include the vastly superior user interface, the viral "pass it on" and "put on site" functions, superior playback performance, the display of the number of times each video has been played, the user accounts, better search functionality (e.g. the ability to sort search returns by date added, title, view count and rating), the way three random frames from each video are displayed next to search results, the display of trackbacks, and the related video functionality.

Here's my favorite YouTube video to date. It's a segment from a Japanese game show called "Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende" (Silent Library), where contestants suffer more and more outrageous tortures without being able to utter a sound:

My second favorite is the series of Star Trek action figure videos, including Crib, Karaoke and Poolside. You've got to check those out too.

Got any favorites to share?

As you may know, Google has launched in beta Google Video, a specialized search engine of video clips and TV programming. They have recently started offering a video upload capability which you can find here.

Google is being surprisingly agressive with seeking out video submissions. A Google employee from Google Labs this week sent one of our clients, Steve Spangler, an unsolicited e-mail asking for permission to add his video clips into Google Video. Here's the email he received:

Subject: [#32719712] Google Video & Steve Spanglers

Hi,

Google Video would like to include Steve Spangler's videos in the Google
Video index to let internet users find, search, and view your content.

We currently have some science videos on Google Video and feel yours is a
good fit too:

Sciencefix.com
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ScienceFix.com&pl=1&btnG=Search+Video

I believe that Google Video can help you increase the distribution of your
video content and the number of visitors to your site. If you are
interested in this opportunity, please let me know, and I will be happy to
provide you with more information via email or give you a call.

Please visit the following pages for more background on Google Video:

Google Video
http://video.google.com
Google Video FAQ
https://upload.video.google.com/video_faq.html
Google Video Preferred Video Specs
https://upload.video.google.com/video_faq.html#upload9

I look forward to hearing from you.
Cliff Saman****
email: *****@google.com
Phone: (650)623-****
Fax: (650)618-****

(I've blocked out the Google employee's full name and contact details to protect his privacy)

Steve called the guy, and the email checks out. Cliff really is a Google employee. Cliff even offered to convert the video clips into mpeg format. Cliff assured Steve that of course the video submission and file format conversion would all be free of charge.

Is anyone else getting solicited by Google Video staffers? Maybe this is part of their program of global world domination?