• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, May 11, 2011

It is a good thing Google has synchronized the its recently upgraded movie rental service across the YouTube and Android brands. It was easy to get confused this week. Early in the week Google announced that it was adding 3,000 top tier releases to its heretofore-minor collection of online rentals. A day later the same movies are at the Android Marketplace.

The blog entry at the company underscored the strategic role of adding long-form content to the site. "Please Stay a While," the headline reads. Six years in to the user-gen video project, YouTube is aspiring to be a multiplex. "You're spending just 15 minutes a day on YouTube, and spending five hours a day watching TV," YouTube head Salar Kamangar writes. "As the lines between online and offline continue to blur, we think that's going to change." The YouTube Movie channel tries to affect a look all its own within the YouTube house. The laterally scrolling marquee features the latest rental releases, like King's Speech and whatever this week's Harry Potter happens to be. Meanwhile a crawl of videos on the bottom rail reminds you of the clips from the rest of YouTube you have saved for later viewing.

They clearly are looking to get some of the Netflix vibe in this design. In addition to the straightforward catalog of films, the interface offers cleverly themed collections like "Is She Really Worth It?" and "For Medicinal Use Only."   It should also be pointed out that Google is focusing on paid rentals in this update, the catalog of free films has expanded nicely as well. Much like Sony's Crackle, the streaming freebies are good examples of niche films that could keep you busy for hours without paying a penny: Super Size Me, The Squid and the Whale, the Freshman, Charade, etc. Curiously, my paid rental of Taxi Driver actually seemed to be co-branded on the YouTube page with Crackle. In fact almost the entire Classics category is free, and who is going to complain about seeing Bringing Up Baby once again. There is also a queuing feature. Tapping the plus icon on any film adds it to the Watch Later list.

For those who have their credit card already on file with Google, purchasing is as easy as it is in iTunes. And like the Apple iTunes store, the interface reminds you of rentals you have not started watching yet. The film does automatically resume where you left off.

The playback experience is pure YouTube, which is unfortunate. The handy thumbnail scrubber that makes Netflix so much easier to manage as a virtual DVR is missing here. I wasn't especially bowled over by the 480p resolution I got for Taxi Driver.

Will Google get me to stay longer as a result of its film rental service? Well, the content is not bad considering the admittedly shallow depth of the collection. What matters most is the ability for these films to follow me across my touch points with the brand. As of now, the Android Marketplace is in synch with YouTube, so rentals I make in one place show up in the other. But aside from playback on an Android tablet, that won't do me much good until the full range of Android devices is supported. There is some real brand confusion at work here already. The movie rentals are not supported so far as I can see on the mobile iteration of YouTube or on my iPad dedicated YouTube app.

While Google and much of the press coverage focus on the number of deals the company is cutting with Hollywood and the depth of the catalog, this digital movie renter is just as interested in the seamlessness of the experience across platforms. The question is not whether the movies on YouTube/Android will entice me to stay there longer. The real question is whether YouTube's movies stay with me longer and in more places.