Yahoo has been struggling to keep pace with Google in the online search market. According to Nielsen Online, Google Search (GOOG | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) was the number one search-service provider for the month of February 2008 with 4.53 billion searches, representing 58.7% of all the searches conducted. Yahoo Search (YHOO | news | PowerRating | PR Charts ) was in the second place with 1.36 billion searches, or 17.6% of the total searches done during the month.
Yahoo's inability to surpass Google's dominance in search has led to eight straight quarters of declining profit. The company is trying to introduce services that will revive its profits even as it recently rejected a takeover bid by Microsoft. The online video market is seen as a potential moneymaker as more consumers switch to the Internet from television.
Flickr is a popular web site for users to share personal photographs and is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. The site was developed by Canada-based Ludicorp in February 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in March 2005. According to comScore Media Metrix, Flickr has grown to 42 million monthly visitors in February 2008 from 27 million in the same period last year.
According to Yahoo!, a recent survey commissioned by it noted that more than 40 percent of respondents aged 18-44 capture personal video clips with their digital cameras, but were not taking advantage of web sites to effectively share their videos.
Yahoo said that Flickr pro members, or members who pay an annual subscription, could upload personal video clips and share them with friends, family and others. The new video uploading feature will support up to 90 seconds of personal video footage captured with the video function of any digital video recording device, including still cameras, camcorders and camera phones.
Flickr members can organize and share videos just like they do photos. They can upload their videos to their photostream along with their photos and set their privacy settings for friends, family or others to see. Yahoo! noted that the videos will be moderated through a combination of Flickr team review, community review and automated abuse-spotting mechanisms.
Yahoo! said that video on Flickr will be available in eight languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portugese, Spanish and traditional Chinese.
Kakul Srivastava, general manager of Flickr at Yahoo! said, "Video on Flickr is an extension of what Flickr is already doing with more than 2 billion photos worldwide - providing a place where people capture and share life's daily moments. 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! said that the new enhancement will help it to advance its goal to become the leading starting point on the Web by offering an even more engaging and relevant service for sharing, exploring and discovering digital imagery.
YHOO closed Tuesday's regular trading session at $27.70 on a volume of 17.94 million shares.
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