TechCrunch broke the news tonight that Yahoo was dropping their Yahoo! Photos site in favor of Flickr (the exponentially more hip photo-sharing site that they also own). What I find interesting is something that was only mentioned in the final sentence at the very bottom of the article…that Flickr is gearing up to allow for video uploads.

Obviously this seems like a natural extension for Flickr as many digital cameras now double as halfway decent video cameras as well – but the addition of videos will also give Yahoo something that Google doesn’t have: a consolidated media sharing site.

It’s not clear yet if Yahoo is going to allow Flickr users unlimited video uploads (as they do for ‘Pro’ users with photos) or if they will start a new charge for that aspect of the service.

I don’t think anyone would expect such a service to take down YouTube, but I for one am excited about it because of the many short videos I have (taken with my digital camera) that somehow never felt exactly at home on a service like YouTube where everyone just seems to be out to find buzzworthy content (and especially now that they are going to start paying users for high-demand videos).

As long as Yahoo keeps Flickr Videos relatively tame and doesn’t try to push it as the future of media, I think it could end up being a very nice service – I’m thinking a classier, younger cousin of YouTube.

More at: Between the Lines | Laughing Squid | Scobleizer

On a side note about Flickr, also remember that this coming Saturday is the Flickr ‘24 Hours of Pictures‘ event. Seeing that it’s also Cinco de Mayo, it should produce some very interesting shots!