Google has had a hand in podcasting in one way or another since the very beginning. My very first podcast had a site on Blogger, a FeedBurner feed and my own media hosting.

With the acquisition of FeedBurner Google has been able to get the second piece of the puzzle in line by integrating the ability to redirect your feed over to FeebBurner.

Now Google has announced integrated video podcast support. So you can upload a file from withing a blogger post and it will automatically become embedded in a post and linked as an enclosure.

I gave it a shot with the video you see below. My first attempt at uploading a QuickTime movie failed with an error. So I gave it a second shot with a video in the iPod format.


As you can see the second try worked. It looks like Google is using their Google Video engine to power the flash conversion and player. Since the Google Video platform leaves something to be desired on flash encoding I don't think any hardcore video bloggers or podcasters will be too excited. And you can also see the nice Blogger logo which will definitely put off this interested in maintaining complete branding control.

The upside is that this makes it easier for the average user to get started in video podcasting. And the people who are learning and experimenting won't be deterred by the things I've pointed out.

Where this can get interesting is when Blogger starts integrating those new advertising options that they have on YouTube.

Labels: blogger, google, podcasting, video