Yahoo Creates YouTube Competitor

Yahoo! Inc., today introduced Yahoo! Video, an online video destination that combines the power of Yahoo! Search with new upload, browse and community features.

Yahoo Video previously offered content found only by crawling the web, but now also allow uploads from content owners, similar to services that YouTube and Google Video offer.

Yahoo aims to recapture share in the fast-emerging market for viewing videos online after lossing ground over the past six months to upstart video search company YouTube.

“As the video space continues to emerge, our strengths in search, content, personalization and community make it possible for Yahoo! to offer a highly engaging video experience for both users and publishers,” said Jason Zajac, general manager of social media. “Yahoo! Video makes it easy for users to discover high quality content, while video creators can be discovered by the Web’s largest global audience.”

Yahoo is merging content uploaded by users with the tens of millions of clips found on the Internet and listed in its index.

Additionally, Yahoo! Video enables users and video enthusiasts to participate in an active social community by rating, reviewing and sharing videos. Users can save videos to a "My Favorites" section and then tag them, making retrieval easier. Friends can share content via Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger. In addition, users can also share uploaded videos by embedding a version of a Yahoo! Video player with the video of their choice into their Web site or blog for the world to see.