“Spout is a great new online community for film fanatics—those who want to horde their faves, quote from cult classics, buy DVDS, make film friends and most importantly, get reviews from peers with similar performance preferences (instead of hyperbole-happy critics).”

“Another start-up, Spout LLC, is at an earlier point in its development. The company is devoted to film lovers who can use the site to discuss and recommend movies, then buy DVDs. Eventually, the privately held Michigan company hopes to have an audience of film buffs that are attracted to specific niches and genres. That kind of information is very useful to moviemakers.

"The idea is around independent filmmakers," said Paul Moore, a Spout employee whose business card says "Cassavetes lover," among other titles. "Now they have an audience that they can target." How will Spout help moviemakers reach those audiences? Those plans haven't been made yet, Mr. Moore said. The important thing now is to build the audience. Once it's there, the opportunities will come, he said.”

And Spout.com, launched earlier this year, allows film buffs to band together and share recommendations of movies worth watching.

In our research," says Bill Holsinger-Robinson, Spout's chief operating officer, ''we found that people are fairly jaded about the traditional critical mechanism, but 52 percent said they have more success turning to family and friends."

I'm not a big fan of "tagging" stuff much more complicated than my Flickr photostream, but I do love a good argument about movies. Spout, a scrappy little site currently in the beta process, provides such an irresistible way of having those conversations that I'm willing to forgive it for asking me to put in the tag work. The front page gives you a bunch of lively categories that'll get you started, but I had lots more fun browsing the movies, picking out a title on which I've got strong opinions, and seeing how like-minded (or crazy-disagreeing-minded) people felt about it. If you can't while away a good half-hour playing with this, we need to upgrade your DVD collection.

Do: Spout What: A genius hybrid of MySpace and Netflix, the website connects films and people in all kinds of relevant ways — and sells flicks that interest you.

Why: It’s a font of information.

Where: Online at spout.com.

Bill Holsinger-Robinson, COO of Spout.com, an online community for film devotees, told TechNewsWorld the deal does make synergistic sense.

"YouTube serves up millions of online videos, [while] Google of course is expert in indexing," Holsinger-Robinson said. Consumers, he predicted, can expect to receive new video-related content and services as a result -- not just from whatever Google will generate from YouTube, but from other companies as well. "Video will be that much more prevalent and that much more accessible," he said.