I hate fast food more than anything else in the world. Now I am unsure about Google.

Steve Austin (wrester) versus Steve Austin (six million dollar man) – who would win?!? ;-)

Ok. Stupid question I know: But does "free today" mean this is today only? Or does it mean there will be various videos free for temporary periods as sponsors move in and out?

I'm lovin it. (First sentence inspired by todays sponosr ;-))

This is so nice:
I've got an Idea, think: Nice idea but the world is not mature enough and then, a couple of months later, google brings this service out to public.

And the videos even play outside of the US. On other similar service outside of the US only the paid service is available and the sponsored service is US only, at google video it's the other way round. (Hopefully this is because they made clever, worldwide contracts with their advertisers and not just a bug)

>the sponsored service is US only

I live in the UK and I can see them. You may be looking at one that would only be avalible in the us any way (like the star trek ones)

If so use the google translater thingy to get around this

Oh and I've got a Greasemonkey script to get rid of the ad's if anyone's interested.
http://mrrix32.googlepages.com/GoogleVideoadRemover.user.js
(BK said "have it your way" and my way is without the ads)

This is another great example of creative thinking by the team at Google that comes up with alternate revenue streams. This one benefits everyone: the video owner gets more revenue because more people watch it than if it wasn't free; the advertiser's benefits are obvious, the viewer gets a free video and without that annoying 15 second ad _before_ the video like many sites use; and, of course, Google gets the ad revenue.

I'm guessing the video owner gets paid an amount slightly less than direct purchases, but this is made up for in volume; the advertiser is probably billed about the same as the standard rate for the video and Google keeps the difference.

Mrrix32: The quoted sentence from me was referring to other sites, not google video free today, I can watch everything without problems for free but are not allowed to buy videos from google video because I'm outside of the US. (Or at least this was the case some weeks ago)

Stephan Locher: Sorry, I was tired and misread your reply. I hadn't tried buying videos from google and didn't know it couldn't be done outside the US