Chances are, if you take photos then you also take video on your digital camera. The problem is that photo sharing sites inevitably only allow you to share photos but not the video footage you’ve taken of your holidays, concert footage, family snaps etc. However, that could all be about to change as the hugely popular Flickr photo sharing site launch Flickr Video beta in April according to Cnet. At the moment, the project is very much under wraps although a few details have been released.
According to the report, Yahoo! who own Flickr, say that the new project is not intended to replace Yahoo! Video or compete with YouTube. It’s meant to appeal specifically to photo sharers who simply want to share their video related photo footage as well – not just upload random footage from any source. It sounds like a reasonable idea but the question is, is it already too late to entice away those who have already joined other video sites and is there really a need for yet another video file sharing community?
I currently use Picasa to upload photos and YouTube multi-video uploader to upload my video footage which is no big deal but it would be nice to be able to do everything under one umbrella. I’ve never really latched onto the Flickr style of photo sharing but I would be more than willing to reconsider if the video interface fulfilled certain requirements. The most important things that would persuade me to change are the ability to upload large video files, perform batch uploads and the speed of the uploading. If there’s one gripe I have about YouTube’s multiple video uploader it’s that it only accepts a maximum of 2GB and it’s terribly slow. If Flickr Video can solve these two problems, then I’d change quicker than you say Adobe Flash.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in exploring current alternatives to the forthcoming Flickr Video service before it arrives, TechCrunch have a good report here.
