Google Video just rolled out a series of new features. The fresh stuff includes a Movers and Shakers list, which allows you to explore popular videos by country. The home page has also been reorganized - there's now a "recently uploaded" section and featured videos appear at the bottom of the page. However, the recent videos section is far more limited than YouTube's - instead of listing the very latest submissions, it appears to show a random selection of videos from the last few days. Perhaps Google didn't relish the thought of policing a near real-time system.
Additionally, logged in users will now see a "search history" link at the top right. Nonetheless, it seems they're still lacking when it comes to social features. There are no comments, groups, friends, favorites, subscriptions, messages or playlists - many of the features, in fact, that make YouTube so compelling.
In related news: Grouper has added some neat new features over the last few weeks. They've switched from Windows Media to Flash 8 (at least for non-IE browsers) and added a bunch of interactive features like video commenting. They also seem to have switched focus - the downloadable client is being pimped less, and they're concentrating on building out the web-based service. My favorite feature? One-click submission to your MySpace page. Gotta feed the beast!
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