Yahoo announced on Monday plans to offer video clips from CNN and ABC on portions of its Web site. Starting in September, the free video clips will be included on Yahoo’s front page, within news stories and in special sections. Yahoo! also has launched a beta network in the U.S. for small- and medium-sized publishers and also has released the APIs for the portal’s shopping database.
About the clips :
“I doubt the average consumer is going to watch CNN online,” said Jupiter Research analyst Todd Chanko. “Although anything [Yahoo] can do to aggregate eyeballs is a good thing.”
“While Google requires a special Web browser plug-in to view video on its site, Yahoo’s video places no such demands on its users”, said Yahoo spokesperson Brian Nelson.
Although the video playback for users is free, the service will be supported by advertising. “I wouldn’t be surprised” if a Yahoo-branded video player were to appear, said Yankee Group analyst Su Lee Walker, who noted that Yahoo already has inked deals with CBS, MTV, Discovery and others.
A full article about the Video Samples is available at [Yahoo!News]
About the ad network :
“The Yahoo! Publisher Network self-serve beta will also offer phone and email customer service and in the coming weeks, will feature ad targeting capabilities to publishers. And that’s just the beginning. Down the road look for more opportunities through the self-serve platform [...]. – So says Yahoo!s Search Blog.
Nathan has made a compilation of the news, over at [InsideGoogle], so tune in here for more.
About Shopping API’s :
Yahoo! also released application-programming interfaces for developers who want to search the portal’s shopping database and display prices and other information for products on their web sites.
Besides search, the APIs can be used for merchant/price comparisons. The technology includes sample code and documentation, and covers millions of products and thousands of merchants in Yahoo’s shopping database.
Read more about this chez [Yahoo!] or get the APIs at the [Developer Network]