In May Flickr cofounder Stewart Butterfield casually mentioned to me that they would be allowing users to upload video “soon” (see last sentence in this post). Yesterday Yahoo Video GM Mike Folgner reconfirmed this: “Yahoo’s Flickr photo-sharing site will also be adding video,” he said.
It was another throw away statement that was part of a larger article on Yahoo revamping its video site to be more competitive with YouTube. But frankly it was the only interesting thing he said. Playing catch up sucks, and that’s the position that Yahoo Video is in right now. They’ll have to work twice as hard as YouTube and are unlikely to get the return they are looking for.
But Flickr needs video. Too often I return from a trip, upload pictures to Flickr and then just store the videos on my hard drive. I want those videos right next to the photos, with the same tags and in the same sets (albums). They should have added this two years ago…and I’ll be glad to see it later this year.