WebProNews

There are dozens of YouTube competitors, and most people would be hard-pressed to name four of them - they’re often (comparatively) itty-bitty sites with equally small user bases and budgets.  Yahoo’s got some heft to it, however, and the company is preparing to strengthen the service that’s known as Yahoo Video.

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.