It’s Off. Yahoo Video is closing. As part of CEO Carol Bartz’s turnaround plan, which relies in the short-term on cutting costs, an email was sent to users of the service this morning announcing the shutdown. Yahoo doesn’t use that exact word “closing,” though, too negative.
Instead the service is “changing.”
But that still means if you have videos uploaded, they will be disappearing, along with your user profile, ratings, favorites, and playlists, by March 14, 2011.
Meanwhile, you can still watch a dog prepare for Christmas. Lucky us.
If you’ve been a long-time fan, kind of like a long-tem 49ers fan, “once they were great!” then you need to find an alternative service.
So what to do?
The bad news from what I can tell is there is no way to download your source video file from Yahoo Video, so you’ll need to cross your fingers and hope you have them somewhere on your old Western Digital drive you tore out of your homebrew two computers ago. (ed. – actually this is incorrect. A reader pointed out that there is a download utility, as mentioned in the notification. Thanks to Zachary for pointing it out. Our apologies!)
On the bright side there are a lot of alternatives out there … ahem, cough, cough, YouTube anyone?!
Here’s a quick rundown of some good choices, and since you’ll be forced to change over the next 90 days (a fun holiday project!) then you might as well read up on some of these you can best decide which is best for your needs.
I’ve written and compared many of these in a previous article you might also want to check-out as it also contains video clips to check out from each service: Vimeo vs. YouTube vs. Facebook vs. Viddler vs. SmugMug: Who reigns supreme in online HD video hosting?
Flickr
This is the one Yahoo recommends you consider, and no wonder it’s owned by Yahoo. Flickr is for short videos only, and is really for creative types that are normally focused on photography. flickr.com.
YouTube
It goes without saying, this should be your top choice. It’s where the eyeballs are as they say, so if you want your video to go viral or at least be seen by more than just you and your cat, YT is it young sir. Offering up to 1080p, playlists, favorites and subscription capability, it has a decent enough feature set. It also has new HTML5 embed code (using iframe) so you can play on non-flash devices. youtube.com (need I even include this link?).
Viddler
This is a great one. Viddler has HD like everyone else now, but it offers social commenting on the timeline which is a sweet differentiator. viddler.com
Blip.tv
If you produce an episodic series then Blip.tv is worth checking out. It’s not the most well known video upload service out there, but it makes up it with a deep feature set. blip.tv
Vimeo
The filmmakers choice. Vimeo has a free and paid service, and is the place you’re most likely to run into the aspiring director you knew back in high school. It has a strong community that is more than happy to share tips, and tell you how you really need to upgrade to Red. vimeo.com
Dear Yahoo! Video user,
After careful consideration, we will be removing all general user-generated content upload capability and user-uploaded video from Yahoo! Video. As a result, your videos, user profiles, ratings, favorites, and playlists will no longer be available after March 14, 2011. User video content from Yahoo! Video that remains embedded on third party sites will no longer be playable after March 14, 2011.
Available on your profile page is a software utility that will allow you to download the videos you have uploaded to Yahoo! Video to your computer through March 14, 2011. You can find your profile by clicking on the ‘My Video’ tab or going to .
Once you download your videos, you may choose to upload them to another site such as Flickr, which now allows video uploads. You can find out more here: https://www.flickr.com/explore/video.
Thanks for your understanding and thanks for being a part of Yahoo! Video.
If you have any questions about this change, please visit our FAQ section, or contact Customer Care.
The Yahoo! Video Team
