Arguably the world?s most popular photo sharing community, Flickr, has today announced the addition of video sharing capibilities.
The ability to add videos is only available to paid members of Flickr and is restricted to 90 seconds of footage. Kakul Srivastava, general manager of
Flickr says that video is a natural progression for Flickr, he says, ?Digital media has led to a new behavior emerging in the market and people are much more likely to shoot short video clips, essentially ?long photos,? with their digital still cameras and mobile phones. There is a great resonance between this new category of content and with the kind of authentic, personal moments already being shared on
Flickr.?
Yahoo!, owners of Flickr, recently commissioned a survey that found more than 40 per cent of respondents between 18 and 44 years of age take footage with their digital cameras and mobile phones but do not upload and share these videos online. Yahoo! also found that while 55 per cent share the videos directly from the device, 20 per cent don?t share the clips at all. Enter Flickr video.
Flickr paid members will have the ability to set the privacy options of the videos they upload, so they are only shared with those they intend to share with and videos uploaded will be fully integrated with Flickr?s current photostream technology.
The photo sharing giant has come under fire on a number of occasions, with users photos unknowingly
used in advertising and marketing campaigns under a Creative Commons Licence. Videos too will be made available under the same licence unless the content owner sets the video as ?All Rights Reserved.? Interestingly, Flickr have also developed an API (application programming interface) for developers to create applications using authorised Flickr videos.
Purchased by
Yahoo! in March 2005, Flickr has grown substantially over the last twelve months, from 27 million to 42 million monthly visitors (according to comScore) and they now boast to hosting more two billion photos.
The move comes at a time of uncertainty for the future of Flickrs parent company. Less than two months ago Microsoft made an unsuccessful bid to
acquire Yahoo! which was quickly followed with
talks of acquisition by Rupert Murdoch?s News Corporation and AOL mergers.