Google and Yahoo are expanding their search products to television. Google Labs released their beta of ‘Google Video’ today. This system allows a user to search closed captioning and see still frame grabs of the relevant video. Some PVRs and TV tuner cards for PCs have done this in the past – tuning to or alerting when certain keywords were matched. But these projects are on a much broader scale.

In a New York Times story this morning (free registration required), Google’s vp for product management says “The long-term business model is complicated and will evolve over time.” I’ll say – the rights to aggregating video from hundreds of local television broadcasts, not to mention networks like CNN, ABC, etc., are going to be complex. But given Google’s audience, it wil be interesting to see if broadcasters see value in placement here. The Times story digs briefly into the touchy issues of rights and network deals related to these types of technologies. A worthwhile read.