Video on Flickr - too little, too late?

So, I see from Popurls that Flickr have made a foray into the crowded online video hosting market. 

They are now offering their 'Pro' members (US$25 a year) like me the facility to upload 90 second video clips ("long photos") to their Flickr profiles.

Here are some of the videos that have already been uploaded and as you can see from this embedded film it is a nice implementation:

I think this is too little, too late but TechCrunch seem to be sold on it as do Boing Boing and I'd certainly rather have the facility than not.

Flickr have been keen to distance themselves from YouTube by emphasising their focus on archiving and sharing within private networks. Direct competitors are therefore the likes of Vimeo and Motionbox who, like Flickr, allow you to restrict who gets to see your videos.

Comments

[Stan Lee]

Let's not forget that YouTube is now owned by Google, so hundreds of smart people in chinos are probably beavering away as I write, trying make it bigger and better.

[Lee]

Hi Stan

I can't imagine that Flickr's product will in any way threaten YouTube's dominance of online video, do you?

And interesting to note that neither YouTube or Google Video have changed noticably since Google bought YouTube implying that it was perhaps just a landgrab.