As of the other day a new player came into the online video sharing town. And this wasn’t just a recent internet start-up looking to usurp market behemoth YouTube. Flickr, one of the world’s largest online Photo repositories has allowed users to upload video to the site. You may be thinking, “So what? Why will this get people off using YouTube?” And there is at least one good reason why Flickr will be able to make a red hot go at it:

1. Clips uploaded will be limited to 1min 30sec.

While this is far less than the 10 minutes per video limit imposed by YouTube, this makes it ideal for the common shorter clips from people’s lives that they’d like to share, and that people would likely check out. I can’t recall any time where somebody has suggested, “Hey, when we come over to your place, I really, really wish we could sit down and watch the three tapes of janky, poorly commentated video you shot.” It also negates the situation where large batches of copyrighted footage could be uploaded, minimizing potential legal action and improving the longevity of the service.It’s early days yet, but this is one web tool that could well be around for a while…