On a day that saw its stock take a hit, Yahoo! has teamed up with Current TV to launch Yahoo! Current Network, a video site with a mix of professional and user submitted videos arranged in channels. Current TV is a cable and satellite channel backed by environmentalist Al Gore that shows short user-submitted shows and segments in what it called ‘viewer created content’. Yahoo! has been granted the rights to exclusive Current TV content for its video portal, and in return some of the best user submissions to Yahoo! may make it onto the terrestrial Current TV channel.
Current TV have previously made a little-known deal with Google to release Google Current, which was a similar concept though hosted on the Current TV site and servers (what they got from the relationship with the search giant is unclear, other than splashing the companies name throughout the videos). Back at Yahoo! there are now four channels of Current content (these names are going to get confusing very quickly) - Yahoo! Current Action, Yahoo! Current Buzz, Yahoo! Current Driver and Yahoo! Current Traveler. We will leave the descriptions of what each of these channels are as an exercise for the reader. Some of the content is actually pretty good, much better than what you would find on YouTube or other amateur clearing houses. As an example, this video gives you not only a decent intro to what Yahoo! current is all about, but is a short clip from Bono and ‘The Edge’ from U2. If you are a U2 fan, you might appreciate the clip of Bono walking into The Edge’s room and waking him up in the morning (the unreleased directors cut has Bono follow him into the shower) and discovering that Yoga is actually a product of Wales.
With the popularity of YouTube and the launch of similar video services from every other company, this is a good effort from Yahoo! to raise the quality of video posts and perhaps appeal to a broader audience. Yahoo! video is actually a good service, the videos are of good quality and there is a lot of solid functionality. Yahoo! now has some good video content to give it’s service a bit of a nudge, but this is a highly competitive space so expect more professional video content from everybody over the coming few months.
This should have been developed Months ago, will be very intriguing to watch it grow and develop
Here is a link to the Yahoo Current TV Video Announcement
http://video.yahoo.com/video/p.....30b.863615
DRM, iTunes/Disney, VideoEgg, Memocast, Y!Current …. - is video the topic of the day?
Video will push internet towards to dominating all media.
Offline media will loose piece of the market pie by the day, the more video related we see, the less days they will be around.
I wonder how and when will they react, and if they do it as a whole or each one on its own.
Its not as good as YouTube right now for one simple reason - you can’t get a full screen display! That means I can’t project the content onto a full size TV and share the experience.
Also, content variety, not quality is king in a Long Tail world. What all these later sites need is the sheer range of stuff…hits I can consume anywhere nowadays, but my personal interests are what I really will pay attention and money to.
@ George - I agree, thats why we founded Broadsight (www.broadsight.com) to work in this area, as I think this change will be huge - and its not just Old media - in my view, broadband internet means *everyone* will be a video media business in some way as their own distribution channels get broadbanded - cars, banks, local plumbers - you name it.
6th word typo: you mean “its”.
I wonder where this internet video trend will lead.
We are witnessing a revolution, my friends:
Broadband connections getting broader and the internet getting more interactive and user friendly by the minute.
The four channels here seem pretty limited, so I think I’ll stick with Yahoo! Video, but then again I never use Yahoo! Video since YouTube’s videos are ad-free.
Now if launch.yahoo.com would quit using windows media player to deliver videos I’d be a happy man.
The race is on to catch up with YouTube.
“profesional”? “sattelite”? “it’s”? TechCrunch, please hire an editor.
top level nav:
Buzz | Action | Driver | Traveler
….hmwah?
It’s like those Flash sites during the bubble era that had cryptic navigation mechanisms that “encouraged the user to explore”. bollocks.
My take on this is that it just validates what we saw potentially coming back in January this year - that eventually, the Web will be full of platforms that operate like TV networks, deploying video content, but also having interactivity and other whistles and bells to keep the end user engaged. I think it’s going to be incredibly exciting. I sit in on a lot of analyst calls and had a video company I was working with last year - when they kept saying they were going to the Bay Area to talk to Google, etc., I knew video was about to have it’s day. Especially with broadband speeds cooking like they’ve been. It’s going to be interesting.
I think it’s great to see Current step it up. I think they had the right idea first, but they’ve been so slow to really get the marketshare online in my opinion - it’d be wise for them to step it up right now while there is still time. In another year, the competition is going to be alot thicker.
On a side note, I tried to position my first platform for this eight months ago but my partner didn’t agree with it, he didn’t think it was going to matter. Ah, boys.
I think a smart company will be multimedia - editorial, video, social networking, user-driven and professionally produced but we’ll see.
Ok, how are you all getting your URLs into your user name?? Not fair! I want that!
Help!
Patricia, where it says Leave a Reply, enter the URL into the Website portion of it.
^ Thanks you!
Yahoo doesn’t pay amateurs for content, but I think Current does. What does this announcement mean to those of us who want to monetize our videos?
Sorry to be such a money whore but what’s the point of getting video fame if you don’t participate in the commodization of the eyeballs? Man that sounded greedy.
Sorry- got the answer:
If your video is featured on the Yahoo! Current Network, you’ll get $100. If it gets picked to air on Current TV, you’ll get an additional $500.
^ I think ultimately, the idea should be to sell your video content to a network or production company
There are always something better!!! But, I’m desagree with you , right now youtube is better….
It seems to me that adding Current TV to your lineup actually worsens your video content
it sucks that insist on using *.wmv instead of Flash
At the moment either YouTube or GoogleVideo are the way to go.
@ Patricia….I agree with you. I’ve blogged a bit about this here
@ agore, lol. i agree i can’t really see the value in this one yet, but you know, maybe current has something new up its sleeve.
alan, where’s your blog?? i want to read it!
@ Patricia
oops…its here
(url http://www.broadstuff.com is the link doesn’t show up)
Comments welcome…its a fascinating area to think about.
Youtube is junkfood for the brain and Current is a (pre-e.coli) salad. Totally different audiences and community. Go to a Current meetup and see. There is one tonight in San Francisco. Great ideas but Current/Yahoo! has to lighten up on the rights and allow for more collaboration in their contracts. I funded some productions and after we finished editing, Current changed their terms and we did not have the proper paperwork. Now the projects sit until we find the actors and people we shot and have them sign new releases.
I can see Current succeed with Yahoo! because the exposure and (hopefully) the lack of cheesy hosts that did not add anything to the broadcast product.
@agor
No offense but Current TV is one of the best channels on Television. It’s all styled, proffesional user created content. Creators get paid for each film that is aired on TV.
I’m not sure Yahoo is the best company to bring this vision farther than it was. Yahoo has more of a self created feel than User created. Most of Yahoo’s properties have little interaction from the user besides a search box.
Although, I am happy to see that yahoo left alot of the general names alone. Yahoo has done a poor job on presenting the videos to the viewers.
It’s generic and Bland.
Conclusion: Current TV would have been better off without Yahoo intefering!
It’s interesting to see the debate as if it’s a zero sum game.
Video will be what text (and then pictures) are the web today.
So there’s tons of room for flavors - both of production styles and distribution solutions.
Current is walking an interesting line between conventional push broadcasting and a Social Media Network. Watching Current on Yahoo it’s clear they haven’t figured that out yet. But the shift from a cable platform to a broader web presence will most certainly get them all kinds of user-data that should help them stear the ship.
What do people watch? What do people want to submit? Does the $100 bounty help or hurt submissions? Are submittors Enthusiasts or Prosumers? Can a Social Media Network survive with a leg in both camps.
My bet is that we’re going to see networks get dramatically smaller - narrower- and more focused on serving their community members. In that regard both Current may or may not be able to leverage Yahoo to get focused and service oriented.
Simply said - is this deal a ‘narrowcast’ or a ‘broadcast’ play?
Thoughts anyone?
I don’t think Yahoo! stands much of a chance of becoming dominant. They’ll get a smallish group of loyals, but as far as actually becoming popular as a video distributor..
Has CurrentTV complete gone bonkers? They’ve let current.tv expire (it seems) and all of their internal links from currenttv.com still link to current.tv.
Can anyone provide any insight?
Thanks!