After four years of photo sharing success, Flickr has finally decided to announce the debut of video sharing. Supposedly, this is to take place some time in April. That could be in as few as 16 days or it could be in as much as 46. Unless something comes up that pushes the date back.
As pointed at by Paul Glazowski, Flickr has been talking about video sharing for a while now and we’ve just been waiting. Now it’s here, or soon to be, and videographers still don’t know whether Flickr will compete with YouTube or offer other opportunities. My bet is, there will be no contest between Flickr and YouTube, just as there is no contest between Flickr and Picasa, the photo sharing site owned by Google.
The question in my mind is this, since Yahoo! owns Flickr and Yahoo! has Yahoo! Video, what do they hope to gain with Flickr video?
On the positive side, if Vlickr video is to be anything like Flickr photo sharing then it could be a good opportunity to gain some video Search Engine Optimization. With Flickr photos, webmasters can upload photos and hot link them to their websites and blogs and since Flickr passes on link juice, those are good inbound links. Plus, you can place URLs in your profile and photo comments. Will those opportunities also be available with Flickr video? My guess is, Yes.