Flickr Video Launches – A Unique Experience

Flickr users can now add video clips alongside their photos, a much requested and much anticipated feature that has been promised for over a year.

The product is not a YouTube clone by any means. The Flickr team, led by Director of Product Management Kakul Srivastava, spent considerable time debating the feature set and user experience internally before launch.

The goal is not to have people upload long videos or clips of copyrighted material. To reinforce that, videos can be only 90 seconds in length and 150MB in size (however these limitations may be changed later, Srivastava says).

In a phone prebriefing, I was very critical of the length limitation. But the team then brought me in for a demo and I was sold. The short clips are a perfect compliment to event photos, in my opinion.

Videos are treated the same way as photos and are placed alongside those photos in albums and the main stream. Videos can also be tagged (and geotagged) in the same way as photos.

The video player itself is extremely clean, so videos look like photos on pages that include them. Videos can also be embedded, of course, as we’ve done above.

Another great feature is the ability to play the videos from the thumbnail screens as well as the permanent page for the video.

Flickr video also differentiates itself from YouTube by only allowing pro users upload videos (it costs $25/yr to be a pro user), although both free and pro users can view videos. As with photos, videos can be made public or private. They can also be shared/embedded individually or as part of sets. But like YouTube, Flickr is providing an API for programmers to create services that access videos hosted on Flickr.

Other standard Flickr features are also available for video, such as search by tags and descriptions, uploads directly from camera phones, and various licensing options.

With this launch, video sharing sites that have focused on privately shared videos should be worried. These include Motionbox, Viddyou, and Vimeo, among others.

BBC announces Nintendo Wii deal

The BBC’s iPlayer video service will soon be available via the Nintendo Wii.

The video download and streaming service that lets people catch up with BBC programmes will soon be a channel on the hugely popular game console. Early versions of the service will be available from 9 April but more polished software will be released as the service is developed. The BBC is still at loggerheads with internet service providers (ISPs) over who should pay for extra network costs.

ISPs say the iPlayer is putting strain on their networks, which need to be upgraded to cope. Simon Gunter, from ISP Tiscali, is leading a call for the BBC to help pay for the rising costs. But Ashley Highfield, head of future media and technology at the corporation, has said he believes the cost of network upgrades should be carried by ISPs. The news of the Nintendo Wii deal comes as the BBC reveals a steep rise in the numbers of people using the iPlayer.

The iPlayer on the Wii is currently being tested and the BBC expects to release more test versions in late 2008. An early version of the service is available from 9 April. It is only available in the UK to licence-fee payers. The iPlayer will be accessible via the internet channel on the Wii console. The BBC said a message would be sent to Wii owners to alert them to its availability.

The news comes as the BBC releases the latest viewing figures for the iPlayer.

In March 2008, more than 17.2 million requests to download or stream BBC programmes were made via the iPlayer. This is up 25% on the previous month and means more than 42 million programmes have been accessed via the iPlayer since its Christmas 2007 launch. Nintendo’s Wii has rapidly become the world’s most popular console largely thanks to its innovative motion-sensitive controller. In the UK it has become the fastest-selling console ever, shifting more than one million units in just 38 weeks after going on sale.

Hello, Veronica!

Great news, world! I’m very pleased to announce that Veronica Belmont has joined the Revision3 family as Patrick Norton’s co-host on our tech-centric show Tekzilla, and we couldn’t be happier to have her on board.

Not only does Veronica fit in well here because she’s got the brains (oh, the brains!), but she’s just an all-around cool person, too. We’re honored to have her with us, and I hope you’ll join me in welcoming her to the Revision3 team.

Check out the official press release on Tekzilla’s latest great addition here.