Wherefore Art Thou Yahoo Video?

Chris Albrecht on NewTeeVee posted an interesting analysis last week on Yahoo’s difficulty integrating its video properties and services on the Web. While Yahoo has re-launched its video section, it hasn’t managed to highlight all the things you can with video using Yahoo’s services. Specifically Albrecht points to the fact that there’s no link to Yahoo content that complements a movie trailer shown on the new video page, and the fact that there’s almost no reference (just a tiny link at the bottom) to Yahoo’s Jumpcut video editing application, which would dovetail nicely with the video-uploading app featured at the new Yahoo Video.

I’ll add to Albrecht’s list by mentioning that there’s no link to Yahoo Go TV. Go TV is designed to bring video from Yahoo to your television, and seems like a natural fit with the Yahoo Video site. Of course, Dave predicted the demise of Go TV over a year ago, and since it’s still hanging on only in beta, maybe it’s being left online by Yahoo higher-ups only to die a slow death. (Also, where’s My Channel? – debuted at CES 2007 and shown bottom right above)

In any case, the point about Yahoo not being able to consolidate its assets into a single compelling video platform is valid. And it’s a problem many other companies face as well. I always hear how well positioned Sony is given the combination of its movie studio and CE business, and yet the two divisions of the company seem to operate worlds away from each other.

Yahoo does have a lot of goodies in its war chest, but if it can’t sell the value of its treasure as a whole to consumers, then spinning off pieces of it or selling out to Microsoft may be Yahoo’s only options.