Google introduced a new feature, embedding videos with a specific starting point, and their announcement goes a long way towards explaining why YouTube has been so successful, and Google Video an also-ran.

From the Official Google Video Blog: New Feature: Embed videos with a specific start point

1. Get the embed code (Click on the ‘Embed - Blog - Post to MySpace’ button, and then the ‘Embed HTML’ link):

2. Copy the code, and insert the following

FlashVars=”initialTime=number”

Where “number” is the time in seconds. For now, you can only specify seconds for embedded videos.

An example of embed code using this time parameter is:

WTF? This may be a nice feature, but obscure features requiring abstruse code aren’t going to make it any easier for Google to compete with the wildly popular YouTube.