We wrote earlier asking why Flickr still isn’t doing video and have done several updates since the news broke (again) that Flickr will be adding video and that Yahoo will be revamping their video site after “losing” to YouTube and Google.

From the sound of it, the new site sounds like it will compete with the likes of YouTube, AOL Video, MSN Video, and the new Joint Venture between NBC and Fox. Ho hum. Deals with all sorts of music labels and content companies just isn’t an important distinguishing factor. Contents companies are very smart nowadays - they realized that non-exclusive deals with as many big portals as possible is the best way to increase viewership.

Let’s hope Yahoo embraces what made Flickr successful in the first place - a great place for the indie photomakers that are passionate about photos and the tech influentials who wanted a collaborative place to put photo streams up around an event or topic. It is this influential and passionate audience that causes these sites to “go viral” and be widely adopted. As Om Malik pointed out, YouTube really became popular and the “winner” because it focused on becoming viral throughout the Internet, not just remaining as a destination site.

Mike Folgner, Yahoo’s general manager for video, said “We’re going to build a much better destination for you to access all this different content.'’ Let’s hope that Yahoo really means it. What would truly be a distinguishing factor? From what we have seen at Mefeedia, users want a place to find interesting video content from any destination, and then watch that content when they want it and where they want it. YouTube and others aren’t quite delivering on this promise yet. Mefeedia delivers on this promise today and we are continually improving the experience. Here is some information to back up that claim:

Any Content - over 24,000 feeds from over 14,000 video sites

• Mainstream Video Feeds - ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, Fox, BBC, NPR, CNN, and more from around the world
• Music Video Feeds - see our music video guide
• Video Sharing Site Feeds
• Video Blog Feeds / Independent Content Producers
• Video Feeds around Events
• Video Feeds that are Local / Location-Based
• News Feeds
• Sports Feeds
• Audio Podcasts
• Video Podcasts

How You Want It - Personalized - Mefeedia allows you to have:

• My Personal Mefeedia Channel
• Social Discovery through your Friends to help find why you like

When and Where you want it - Mefeedia Personal Channels and Category Channels have been watched on:

• Feed Readers
• Media Players
• Mobile Devices
• Set-top Boxes
• Game Consoles
• Widgets
• Second Life Media Kiosks

See more in:flickr, mefeedia, video, yahoo

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Online Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.