Will Flickr Video Put A Dent In YouTube?

TechCrunch is reporting on rumors that popular photo-sharing site Flickr will soon be offering video hosting as well. The details are vague and Flickr is not confirming anything yet. But TechCrunch says there could be an announcement in the next three weeks.

Video for Flickr is an obvious evolution for the site. It’s hugely popular for photo-sharing with it’s easy to use interface and ability to tag, organize and share your photos. People have been asking for video on Flickr for a long time and Yahoo has been promising it for a long time too. They may have been waiting to make sure that what they came up with was as good or better than what YouTube offers. Flickr offers basic accounts for free and pro accounts with premium services for a fee (I think about $25 a year).  I wonder if they will follow the same model for the video or if it will all be free.  They will also need to have the ability to easily embed the videos anywhere like YouTube does.

I have had a Flickr account  for about three years now and love it.  I also have a YouTube account where I store my family videos.  If Flickr offers something just as good as YouTube I will move all my video over there because my photos are already there.  I think many other people will do this too but I don’t really think Flickr will become the new YouTube because of this.  YouTube has a better brand image and when people think online video they think of YouTube.  YouTube  may lose a few accounts (like me) but I will still probably go to YouTube to find the best content just because of the massive library of videos they have.  It will take a long time for Flickr to catch up to that if they even can.

See also: Mashable