So says Nielsen (by way of Beet.TV), which believes Yahoo Video attracted 29.9 million unique visitors in September and displayed around 264.3 million clips.  This means a 56 percent month-over-month increase occurred in terms of that second statistic.  Streams at Fox, Microsoft, and Nickelodeon decreased by 13, 20, and 27 percent, respectively, during the same period.  They all fell behind as a result.

 

YouTube, for the record, stayed in the lead – way out in the lead, showing 5.4 billion clips – but at least had a tamer growth rate of 12 percent.

So how and why did Yahoo leap ahead so much?  Well, first, we’ll return to the matter of Nielsen’s stats being accurate.  Compete suggests a near-identical month-over-month growth rate of 59.1 percent.

Then we’re down to guesses and vague comments.  Andy Plesser writes, "Earlier this week . . . Kelsey interviewed Jimmy Pitaro, head of entertainment and sports at Yahoo! about the company’s approach to video.  He told her that Yahoo has blurred the lines between user-generated and professional content with videos like the Shakira ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ fan mash-up, which was the number one video on Yahoo for a number of months.  He also describes Yahoo’s live streaming, on-demand and original content offerings."

Given all the Halloween vids and election fuss, don’t be surprised if Yahoo Video becomes even more popular over the next couple of months.

"The new National Lampoon channel on Yahoo! Video is another step in our progress towards building out the National Lampoon Video Network," said Daniel Laikin, National Lampoon’s Chief Executive Officer.

"Our relationship with Yahoo! Video provides another destination for our fans worldwide to view our original comedy content and interact with our programming."

All of National Lampoon’s new programming will be made available on Yahoo Video through the National Lampoon channel. Initial programming includes National Lampoon’s webisodes, SpinCycle mashimation and the Fat Guy Nation series.

Bloomberg’s Ari Levy reports, “Music videos, movie trailers, television shows and sports highlights are among the features that will be available on the new site, Mike Folgner, Yahoo’s general manager for video, said in an interview.”  And if that’s not enough, “Yahoo’s Flickr photo-sharing site will also be adding video.”

Levy goes on to list the current state of affairs: “Of the 8.36 billion streams viewed that month, Google, which acquired YouTube last year, accounted for 22 percent, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore said.  Yahoo was third at 4.6 percent, behind News Corp.’s Fox pages, which includes social-networking site MySpace.”

So that’s not as much of a gap as one might imagine, and the planned changes to Yahoo Video could help close it.  Another point in Yahoo’s favor comes in the form of its legal status – while, for a lengthy period, it seemed like we were reporting on a new YouTube- or Google-related lawsuit every week, Yahoo’s site is regarded much more highly by various content owners.

When, then, will we see all these factors come together?  “By the end of the year,” according to Levy.

In short films of two minutes or less contestants will answer the question, "What does green mean to you?" Those who participate in the contest can edit and submit films on Jumpcut between March 8- April 22. Over that period of time, viewers will be able to vote on films they find to be worthwhile. Up to ten films will be selected to be included in the final voting stage from April 26-May 6 where viewers can vote for the Audience Favorite.

"Yahoo! Video is one of the most creative groups the San Francisco Film Society has had the opportunity to work with," said Graham Leggat, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society. "We are very excited by their new ideas for filmmakers and film audiences and are looking forward to exploring with them the converging frontiers of film and digital technology."

The Grand Prize Winner will be presented with $1,000 prize and the Audience Favorite will be announced at the SFIFF50 Golden Gate Awards ceremony on Thursday, May 9. The two winning films will be screened and will also be available for viewing online at Jumpcut.

"As a leading online video destination, Yahoo! Video is constantly looking for opportunities to enhance the online video experience for our users." said Vince Broady, Head of Yahoo! Entertainment. "By partnering with the San Francisco Film Society, we are offering exciting, high-quality independent film content to our users within a branded experience. And by providing an online video editing platform through Jumpcut, we’ll empower our users to express "What it means to be green" through the power of video"

 Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

The Good Morning Silicon Valley blog posted a brief note on a couple of people using Yahoo Video’s recently released upload service. One video came from a lawyer for imprisoned Chinese journalist Shi Tao, brought to viewers in crystal clarity from ABC News.

Also, a video by the brother of imprisoned journalist Li Zhi, also from ABC News, appears in a Yahoo Video search for Yahoo China. The producers of both videos have helpfully provided translation via subtitles of both men’s speeches, which we’ve excerpted as follows.

“Yahoo didn’t only give information about Shi Tao, it has done the same to many others,” said Shi Tao’s lawyer. “Does Yahoo have to absolutely obey Chinese law? In fact, it has the right to decide. That’s to say that if (Yahoo) finds there is a contradiction between the law and the protection of human rights, for example freedom of communication and expression, then Yahoo has the right not to comply.”

“My brother is in jail because of you,” said Li Zhi’s brother. “His health wasn’t great before he was imprisoned, he had hepatitis. Since he’s been in jail, he’s caught pleurisy because of doing hard labor.

“This has just torn our family apart. He’s been found guilty under Chinese law, although when you look at his file, I’m convinced he’s innocent. Your company is the reason all of this has happened.”

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel came in for some criticism today when the Wall Street Journal’s “D: Notebook” blog cited his remarks defending the company’s actions in China. Much has been made of Semel’s response to a question of whether Yahoo would have appeased Nazi Germany as it did China.

It’s probably fairer to present Semel’s comments as noted in the blog before the Nazi question, which we’ll do here, and allow the reader to decide what he might mean:

—

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Yahoo Video has received some retouching from the Yahoo staff. Ethan Fassett posted news of the update to the Yahoo Search blog, and provided a review of the features now available from Yahoo Video.

On the site, users can now upload their videos to share with others. Through the use of its MyStudio, people can manage and share the videos they upload to the service.

Video links can be shared by email or through Yahoo Messenger. A video player window for user-contributed content can be copied and pasted into a blog post or web page, where others can play it back.

The home page update for Yahoo Video shows snapshots of videos from the Featured, Popular, and New categories. Each snapshot has a quick link to search for other videos similar to those highlighted at the top of the page.

Visitors can browse through lists of Featured and Popular videos from the main page, or select from Categories or Tags to see available videos related to those queries. Also, the introduction of Channels groups videos from a common source and lists those sources on the left side of the search results page.

As users upload their videos, they create an individual Channel. Other users can subscribe to that Channel with a RSS reader or saved to a MyFavorites page.

Videos from MyFavorites can be exported as a Media RSS feed. People can subscribe to that feed and keep up with that user’s choices as he adds more videos to the feed.

—
Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.