Google Inc., trying to extend its dominance of Internet search into the market for videos, has said it made a mistake with the design of an online store.
Shows for sale weren’t well promoted on the home page of Google Video, introduced this month, vice president Marissa Mayer said in an interview in Munich. That left customers unable to tap easily into hits such as CBS Corp.’s top-rated “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and reality show “Survivor.”
“We made a big mistake,” Mayer, who oversees all of Google’s search products, said Tuesday. “You can’t come out and launch a product like Google Video and say ‘CSI’ and ‘Survivor’ are there if they’re not on the home page.”
Google Video is a rare stumble for the Mountain View, Calif.- based company and highlights the challenges Google will face as it expands beyond Internet search. Google shares more than doubled last year on optimism that the company would parlay its success in search to products such as Internet phone calls and classified advertising.
The video service has “fallen far short” of competitors such as Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes music and video offering, said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc.
“What Apple has done with the iTunes store sets the bar really high,” he said.
New York Times technology reviewer David Pogue said last week that Google’s video store was “appallingly half-baked” and that the site “doesn’t live up to Google’s usual standards of excellence.”
Google Video won’t let consumers play copy-protected shows on portable video devices including the iPod or laptops that aren’t connected to the Internet, Pogue said.
That means they can’t be viewed on long plane or auto journeys.
He also said the site’s design is “incredibly bare-bones and empty-looking.”
Tuesday, Google changed the home page to make it easier to find clips, Mayer said.
Shares of Google fell $10.03 to $433 Wednesday.
Google’s video site attracted 3.04 million U.S. users in December, according to Nielsen// NetRatings. which tracks Web use.
Visitors to Apple’s iTunes website and use of the iTunes software numbered 20.7 million.
Google Video was introduced a year ago.
