Media Forum: Can video enhance search?(Viewpoint essay)

Will Google's proposed new format excite advertisers, Alasdair Reid asks.

Clever Google. It has just invented a cure for its own apparent split personality.

Google gives the impression of being two businesses. There's the grim, older Google, the one that bases its corporate values on the Kosygin-era Soviet Union. The search engine monolith that declared Cold War on the advertising industry - the one that asks you to take a tedious 'exam' before you're allowed to give it your money.

Then there's the newer, cheerful Google, the one that loves display advertising and appreciates what a ticklish business it is to produce The one that wants to help you 'achieve your goals' and lets you display your choice of text, image, Flash or video ads on its Display Network The Google that has an inkling that it might own a video-on-demand hub called YouTube.

Last week, the hand of history no doubt …