• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 6, 2005

Yahoo! Thursday announced new partners for its Video Search, including Buena Vista Pictures, CBS News, CMT, Discovery Communications, MTV, Reuters, Scripps Networks, and VH1. Also, Yahoo! said that it will allow independent video publishers to send links of their content via Really Simple Syndication for inclusion in its database.

On Thursday Yahoo! also made Video Search generally available, after five months of beta testing. Jeff Karnes, director of media search at Yahoo!, said the feature was ready for "prime time" because of the comprehensiveness of the content through partnerships Yahoo! has established; technological improvements related to Yahoo!'s media crawler and its ability to extract meta data; and the open standards that it has established by supporting Media RSS, an extension to RSS.

"We have a commitment to comprehensiveness, and technology and partnerships present the main roadblocks that keep us from reaching the breadth we"re after," said Karnes. "It"s clear where we need to focus our efforts moving forward."

Other companies, such as Google and Blinkx.tv, also have existing services that allow viewers to search and view content ranging from news bulletins to movie trailers and home videos. Yahoo!"s service points visitors to third-party sites for viewing video to avoid licensing issues. On Tuesday, Google announced several new content partnerships with providers, including Discovery Channel and CNN.

In addition to the new relationships, Yahoo! has formed partnerships with a number of other video content sources. Through a deal with TVEyes, Yahoo! allows searching within Bloomberg video broadcasts, and direct links to the relevant portion of broadcasts. Other partners include Internet Broadcasting Systems, IFILM, The One Network, and Stupid Videos. Moreover, Yahoo! Video Search also obtains content from independent publishers and online video sites such as Internet Archive.

Yahoo! Video Search now also provides users with integrated access to video content from the Yahoo! network by including movie trailers from Yahoo! Movies; music videos from Yahoo! Music; and exclusive video from NBC"s "The Apprentice," including the full confessionals from fired contestants; and "The Contender," including the full boxing match from each episode.

Yahoo! has long recognized the importance of open standards such as the popular RSS in the creation and syndication of content. By supporting Media RSS, an extension to RSS, Yahoo! Video Search fosters openness and choice for independent video publishers looking to promote or syndicate their content.

As of Thursday, users of Yahoo! Video Search had access to an array of content including movie trailers and clips from Buena Vista Pictures; shorts/independent movies, viral movies and music videos from IFILM; music videos and movie trailers from VH1 and MTV; and news clips from CBS News and Reuters.