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Yahoo Could Recruit YouTube Stars For Its Own Video Streaming Site
Enid Burns for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Watching video has quickly evolved into one of the Internet’s favorite pastimes. And while there are a handful of video-sharing sites, Google’s YouTube has remained the one to beat.
Recent reports suggest that Yahoo may be planning to build a direct competitor to YouTube, and it might be recruiting a few YouTube sensations to bring it popularity, Re/code reports.
Acquisition was the first course of action, though that idea was dead in the water after the French government blocked an acquisition deal for Dailymotion, Ubergizmo reports.
Under Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer the company has recently completed several acquisitions, such as microblogging platform Tumblr last May, video making app Qwiki in July, image recognition startup LookFlow in October and speech recognition developer SkyPhrase in December. While the Qwiki property could aid in a video platform, Yahoo cannot rely solely on the startup’s mobile app as its video platform.
Yahoo could also work to build its video property by taking some of YouTube’s stars and giving them a new spotlight, Re/code suggests.
“But creating an online video service is a much bigger deal and is not just conceptual — several industry sources say Yahoo has recently been approaching individual YouTube stars and some of the big networks now on the giant online video service,” wrote Re/Code’s Peter Kafka and Kara Swisher.
Several YouTube regulars might be interested in jumping to a new ship, if it means more income. Reports suggest that some high-profile creators on YouTube have complained about not making enough money on the popular streaming venue, Ubergizmo reports.
“The come-on? Yahoo executives have told video makers and owners that the company can offer them better economics than they’re getting on YouTube, either by improving the ad revenue or by offering guaranteed ad rates for their videos,” wrote Kafka and Swisher. “In addition, Yahoo has offered extensive marketing, even on its home page, as well as allowing video producers the ability to sell advertising along with Yahoo’s sales force.”
It is not known whether video producers and owners will have to choose a side, or have the ability to publish videos on both YouTube and Yahoo’s video platform. Some sources did say that contributors can promote clips on a non-exclusive basis, suggesting the same clips can be available on both sites. It is also not entirely known what Yahoo is planning, though its reports suggest it will create a video site on a smaller scale, but focus on proven content.
“For now, at least, Yahoo isn’t talking about replicating YouTube’s open platform, which lets users upload 100 hours of content every minute to the site. Instead, it is interested in cherry-picking particularly popular, more professional YouTube fare,” wrote Kafka and Swisher.
A video site is one of Yahoo’s latest attempts to revive itself and become competitive with Google, as well as other Internet sites.
“Mayer — a former Google exec who has imposed an awful lot of Googley ideas on Yahoo since she got there (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, ya know!) — has been pushing the effort. It is all part of her valiant and doubtlessly exhausting attempts to turn around the Silicon Valley Internet giant. So far, other than the spectacular run of its Chinese asset, Alibaba Group, that has boosted Yahoo stock, the core business continues to lag. That giant sum of money from Alibaba could easily pay the costs of mounting a challenge to Google, which some might think a fool’s errand,” Kafka and Swisher wrote.
Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1113108490/yahoo-building-youtube-like-video-streaming-site-033114/
