Article: Google growth driven by users
businessweek.com/ap/tech/D8JR0 ...

From the article:
"We're computer scientists," Marissa Mayer, a Google Inc. vice president, told broadcast executives at the recent Edinburgh International Television Festival. "We're not brilliant storytellers or content creators."

"Mayer acknowledged that even Google had failed to foresee the huge popularity of user-generated content. She said Google's original model for online video emphasized "premium content," in which viewers would pay a small fee to access."

Our favorite free video search tool (that includes Google Video content, YouTube content, and many other services) is
SearchforVideo.com
searchforvideo.com

Spanish and German language sites too.
searchforvideo.com/espanol/
searchforvideo.com/deutsch/

Another service worthy of note is TVEyes.com
tveyes.com
This fee-based service (worth a demo for sure) also offers for free a feature that allows you to keyword search web-based news video from several producers. Then, go directly to the portion of the video where your words are spoken. TVEyes also powers podcast engine Podscope.
podscope.com