Despite Google's "Wall Street Darling" status, Yahoo! still rates as the most popular cyber-destination, getting more visitors than any other single website on the Internet.

With the recent surge in production and consumption of online video, it's no wonder that Yahoo! wants a piece of the action, especially with the intense interest from marketers eager to find the best way to cash-in with video advertising.

Though Yahoo! cataloged online video long before Google's entry into the online video market, a massive redesign of Yahoo!'s video interface indicates they want a bigger piece of the online video pie.

When you log onto http://Video.Yahoo.com, it looks pretty much like every other online video search engine, such as YouTube.com or Video.Google.com

You can search for videos by keywords as well as log in and upload your own videos right through your web browser to share with others online.

You can also easily share the videos with your friends in a number of ways, including: posting it on your blog; sending an email with a link; and adding it to your publicly available favorites for others to see.

However, despite the similarities, Yahoo! Video does carry some variations worth discussing.

Hosted vs. Linked Video

Virtually every single other major video directory on the web hosts all the video that gets displayed on their sites.

Google Video, iFilm, YouTube and others all force the user to upload video to their servers before inclusion in the directory.

Yahoo! Video does both. Users can either upload their videos through their web browsers to the Yahoo! servers or wait for Yahoo! to find the videos and include them in their directory.

The fact that Yahoo! includes remotely hosted videos in their search results means you have a better chance of finding the videos you want, since you get more potential choices with each search.

However, it also means a greater chance of going on a wild goose chase when a video file no longer exists on a remote server.

Video File Formats

Almost every single other video directory converts uploaded videos to the FLV file format before making them available for viewing.

This enables both Mac and PC users to view videos using the free Flash browser plug-in.

On the other hand, since they both host and link to video, Yahoo! Video makes available multiple file formats, including FLV, WMV (Windows Media Video), MPEG and more.

Since all of these formats don't work on every computer and operating system, I believe this will cause confusion among users.

And, based on my experience, confusion causes people to look elsewhere for what they want.

Overall, Yahoo!'s video service looks more like a "me too" effort than a serious attempt at innovation.

Yahoo! does not include video in their main search results page, the advertising on the video results page is not targeted, and the multiple file formats will create frustration for some users.

Despite any shortcomings, if you publish online video, of course make sure you submit your video to Yahoo! simply because the Web's most popular site is bound to get you some extra visitors.

Copyright 2006 Jim Edwards