Google Video continues to get pounded by blogs and the press.

Brad Hill: "painfully disappointing," "almost completely uninteresting, even infuriating"
Greg Linden: Google Video misses the "wow"
Mike at Techdirt : "something has gone horribly, horribly wrong"
Nathan: "Botched. Totally botched."
ZDNet: "Blockbuster Video and NetFlix may not have much to worry about yet"

As much as I respect Brad, Greg, Mike, Nathan and the rest, you should expect a different perspective from Buygoogle. Rather than regurgitate what everyone else is saying, Buygoogle has consistently taken a contrarian view. When doubters said Google wasn't worth $170 a share, Buygoogle argued that Google was cheap. When observers ripped on the Google Web Accelerator, I predicted it would change the infrastructure of the Net.

And when skeptics said that Google was a one-trick pony, I said that Google TV would rock the world.

If there is one thing we've learned from Google's spectacular ascent, it's that traditional thinking can't explain what they're doing. Wall Street thinking couldn't explain Google, and Google consistently proves them wrong. And couch potato thinking can't explain Google Video.

I argued that judging Google Video by its depth of content on Day 1 is missing the point. In its beta release, the Google Video Player has leapfrogged the bloatware and nagware that Microsoft and Apple have been refining for years. Google's DRM is kinder and gentler, and doesn't frustrate the user experience.

But most importantly for those thinking about the strategic consequences of Google TV, Google just created something that doesn't exist anywhere else -- a marketplace for video content that is open to everyone. While Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo are trying to put themselves at the center, Google has put content providers and consumers at the center. Google created the platform to bring providers and consumers together. Google is the first to allow providers the flexibility to price and protect their content as they see fit, while protecting the content consumer from overzealous DRM that can make their investment in content evaporate.

In short, Google has liberated premium video content from the pricing, protection and distribution barriers that have kept it locked up for decades. Just as it did for search advertising, Google has built a better platform, and the content will come.

Don't rely on blogger buzz or Wall Street blather. See for yourself and make up your own mind. Spend a couple hours playing with the new Google Video Store. Watch an hour-long Charlie Rose interview with Thomas Friedman and learn how the world is flat. Get inside Eric Schmidt's head with another insightful hour of quality content.

Or watch Waterborne, a full-length thriller that's surprisingly good and debuted on Google Video:

I agree with you here. One thing that the main and not-so-main line media has missed is the fact that Google has created the eBay of online video content. There's no auction piece, but the online marketplace where buyers and sellers come to search-find-buy is a very interesting and infinitely scalable offering.    

Mahlon, a stock watching blog like this one would love the video store, as its more a PR move than a useful one. So, from your reporting perspective, it is a good thing.

That said, in reference to two things you said:

The lack of bloatware: Only because (A) its a new product. Windows Media Player was pretty light in version one. (B) Google doesn't like features, at least early in a product's lifecycle. They like things to do one thing well, and nothing else at all. I don't like that tactic, and neither do many users.

As for DRM, their DRM is worse than most. You can't move your videos to your devices, and many videos expire after one day. I want to buy video, not rent it for the same price I could buy it for from iTunes.

Everyone's going to feel different about this, and I agree with you on some points, but the fact is that the video store is understocked, overpriced and overhyped.