video portals

Much like any other business, the changing of the name plate on the CEO’s desk brings change to internal processes. Yahoo! is no different. Carol Bartz is taking over the best window office at Yahoo! and rolling out a new approach to video. In the past, when Terry Semel ran Yahoo, the web portal embarked on a grandiose Hollywood-style video strategy. Under Semel, Yahoo produced TV-like original video series, but found little success in the venture. It was abandoned when Semel stepped down. Now Yahoo! wants to get their video engine revving again, and its Carol Bartz’ turn to try for success.

Web 2.0 brought us: consumer generated content, social networking sites, and a whole new way of communicating with such stand-outs as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Recently, NBC Universal and News Corp. created Hulu.com, a video portal with the exclusive rights to distribute NBC and Fox shows outside of their websites. This is a whole new way to watch television... online. You can catch all those episodes of Family Guy and SNL that you’ve been missing at any time.

Hulu.com has become the fourth-biggest online video distributor by unique visitors as of January 2009, according to the latest from Nielsen VideoCensus. In total streams Hulu was third, with 232 million, behind YouTube (5.8 million) and Yahoo (277 million).