The New Yahoo! Video - Discover, and Be Discovered!
Tonight we rolled out the new Yahoo! Video, an upgrade to our video search service that introduces more ways to find and share video programming, including the ability to upload your videos directly to Yahoo! — Here's a quick rundown of what's available to you:
Context & Ripple Effects
Yahoo is extending its video offering from a search destination into a service where users can contribute programming directly. That move sits alongside Yahoo's May 2006 push to let marketers target audiences using search terms, demographics, location, and activity across its network.
The product also follows Yahoo's advertising alliance with eBay, underscoring that Yahoo is building more network surfaces around discovery and audience reach rather than treating search as a standalone product.
First-order effects
- Viewers gain more ways to find and share programming, while creators can upload directly to Yahoo rather than relying on it only to locate video elsewhere.
- Yahoo gains a direct relationship with video contributors and a larger pool of material for its discovery service.
Second-order effects
- Yahoo's video service becomes a more direct distribution alternative for creators, raising the competitive importance of discovery and sharing features among video destinations.
- Yahoo's audience-targeting ad system has another engagement surface to connect with its broader network, though the announcement does not specify video advertising.
Third-order effects
- If major portals pair search with user uploads, video discovery shifts from indexing outside sources toward controlling both the audience entry point and the underlying content supply.
The trend: Web portals are turning vertical search products into participatory media platforms that combine discovery, sharing, and first-party content.