Flickr Add Video to its Popular Photo-Sharing Community, Flickr, a Yahoo Inc. company and one of the world’s fastest growing online photo-sharing communities, today launched video sharing.

Flickr stepping into video sharing is a definite positive step unlike many video sharing sites like YouTube, one thing flickr is tough about is moderated video content, that means the videos posted at flickr will be moderated, should be created by individuals only and should follow content policy by flickr. Apart from that flickr will only allow 90seconds of playback for the videos posted.

The video uploading is only available for Flickr pro members who can upload personal video clips and share them with friends, family
and the world.Flickr - which has grown from 27 million to 42 million monthly visitors worldwide in the past year(1) - serves as the ‘eyes of the world’ for its members globally, and with the addition of video, is giving people more ways to share what they see and experience in their everyday lives. The new enhancement is helping to advance Yahoo!’s goal to become the leading starting point on the Web by offering an even more engaging and relevant service for sharing, exploring and discovering digital imagery.

As pro members around the world upload personal video clips on Flickr, people can see, share, and experience the world in motion through the eyes of the Flickr community. Video on Flickr will be available in eight languages including English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and traditional Chinese. This new feature provides:

Features of Flickr Video Sharing

• Video uploading for Flickr pro members
• The ability for free and pro members to view public video clips
• Video limits up to 90 seconds long and 150MB maximum in size
• Controls to make videos private, visible to friends and/or family, or public
• Seamless integration of videos into the photostream, along with photos
• The ability to share video clips individually, as part of a set, or embed on third-party Web sites
• Tagging and geotagging capabilities for videos
• The ability to search videos by tags and descriptions
• The ability to upload videos directly from camera phones
• The option to view videos on a full screen
• Licensing options to mark a video as ‘All Rights Reserved’ or designate a license through Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/)
• Application programming interface (API) for third party developers to create programs or services using authorized video submitted to Flickr

Ref : Yahoo Press Release, Flickr Blog,

Today i reviewed the famous Yahoo Buzz, the new service launched by Yahoo which in some people’s word is a close replica of Digg. Just like all the services of Yahoo, Yahoo buzz requires you to log in using a Yahoo account. Once logged in all you can do is review a story and place your vote on it. Thats it !

Unfortunately like all the new launches by Yahoo i think the Yahoo buzz also sucks, if you are a user at digg you probably would not prefer to even visit Yahoo Buzz so let me sum up why Yahoo buzz sucks: (more…)

In the January 2008 analysis of the Top 50 properties worldwide where search activity is observed, Google Sites led with 7.7 billion searches. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with nearly 2.5 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (1.1 billion), and AOL LLC (903 million).

Google Sites marginally extended its share of core searches to 58.5 percent. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.2 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.8 percent), AOL LLC (4.9 percent), and Ask Network (4.5 percent).

Previously Yahoo after a week of it initial statement gave clean statements that it would reject Microsoft’s Offer and set up an alliance with Google. According to tech crunch Yahoo board met secretly on Friday to discuss and made a decision on the Microsoft Offer. According to latest releases Yahoo have decided to reject Microsoft’s offer this has been verified by a publication by Wall Street Journal, According to wall street Journal Yahoo will be sending a formal letter to Microsoft declining there offer by Monday.

The reason for rejection is simple Yahoo considers that Microsoft has undervalued Yahoo assets and have placed a bid that is lower then that expected by Yahoo, in simple terms Yahoo have decided to accepted the offer by Microsoft if the value of bid is increased 12 billion to 56.6 billion dollars i.e. $40 a share.

Now the balls are in the court of Microsoft if they can jump up 12 more billion into this accusation they would gain control of Yet another powerful heritage of the Web.

I predict the accusation will take place and Yahoo will be accquired by Microsoft, Microsoft CEO ‘Steve Ballmer’ has also
mentioned that if the accusation of Yahoo takes place the brand of Yahoo will live only powered by Microsoft. Some predict that Microsoft will shut down MSN or Hotmail and merge them to Yahoo but i have my doubts as Microsoft will keep them both alive and in competition with each other…. and with Google.

Yahoo today launched it Yahoo Live a live video streaming service by Yahoo. Unlike Youtube, and other Video Sharing Yahoo have build the application in which any body with a yahoo id can login create a channel and start streaming video from his web cam to his channel without any initial setup. Yahoo has smartly made the use of flash video player and streams video directly via flash. No doubt the dying technology of flash got a new horizon and path in video broadcasting.

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Sunday Feb 3rd 2008
Yahoo Inc would consider a business alliance with Google Inc as one way to rebuff a $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft, a source familiar with Yahoo’s strategy said on Sunday. Yahoo management is considering revisiting talks it held with Google several months ago on an alliance as an alternative to Microsoft’s bid, that source said. At $31 a share, Yahoo believes the bid undervalues the company, two sources said.
Source : Yahoo News

This statement by Yahoo Inc. clearly represents that they just give a big fat finger to Microsoft Up Yours! Apart from that Yahoo is also considering offers by Apple Computer to come in for the rescue. I still can’t accept the idea that Yahoo would become a part of Microsoft. Its devastating, since ages Yahoo has become a legend of internet, no doubt the company is suffering and is planning to layoff 1000’s of employees but since the old ages there was one site we all knew about and used it as well. Yahoo is the legend of internet, its not the best search engine and neither it has the best Mail servers but still Yahoo is something that reminds us of internet.

Worst case scenario if Microsoft acquires Yahoo what would be left of it, will Microsoft shutdown MSN.com and support Yahoo, will it close its MSN messenger and go for Yahoo Messenger, will msn live be replaced by MyYahoo, i dont think so all the services of Yahoo will be gradulay absorbed inside MSN and the legend of Yahoo will be dead.

The famous Generous Big by Microsoft to acquire Yahoo for 46.5 billion dollars is taking yet another exciting turn, so far the big amount is way beyond its limit which is putting serious concerns on the intentions of Microsoft. The most worried company on this accusation deal is Google as previously Google had two competitors Yahoo & Microsoft when combined together there will be one competition to Google. Today Google released a press statement on which Microsoft responded immediately seems more like a corporate war going open in press check it out below what they have to say.

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