Just a few days after Yahoo revamped its video search with channels, on-line video leader YouTube has done the same. Channels in YouTube work the same way as Yahoo and in some ways better. The idea is you can see all the videos by a single person or entity. Also, via RSS, you can subscribe to these channels. One thing that makes YouTube channels a little better than Yahoo is the landing page for a channel. That page in YouTube looks amazingly like a MySpace page. There are ways to contact the channel owner, a list of their videos, a list of the channel owners favorite videos and who is subscribed to that channel. Looks very much like a video social network. 

Yahoo has made improvements to it's video search capability in an effort to keep up with new upstarts like YouTube. Yahoo Video Search now allows users to tag videos and subscribe or view different "channels". By using the channel metaphor, Yahoo tries to connect with average users on a basis they can better understand. Everyone knows what a channel is. The Yahoo Video Search is a it of a strange animal, however, as it does not import videos directly into itself like YouTube. It links to existing videos across a wide variety of places. The downside of this strategy is that it can take 2-3 clicks to get the video going and there is always a different video player being used depending on the service used. With YouTube, every video plays the same way and takes the same number of clicks to start. This better consistency leads to greater ease of use. But the Yahoo search is ten times better than Google Video, which is absolutely terrible.

In true social/citizen media form, one of many videos that take off from the original "Lazy Sunday" skit originally broadcast on Saturday Night Live. NBC has taken down the original video that was posted to YouTube, a decision that almost nobody understands. Here you had one of the most viral videos going and everyone knew it was originated from SNL. If NBC were smart they would produce more short form videos for this kids of viral distribution. This could fuel the fire for SNL, possibly creating some real buzz around it. This one skit has had at least 4 different citizen produced spin-off videos. Think of the community network momentum NBC could build around this show if they collected and published all the fan videos on the SNL website. When people are so turned on by your product that they want to remix, mashup and re-distribute it, that's a good thing. 

The amount of short form video that is out now on the net is exploding. AOL has now jumped into the game as well with AOL UnCut.  YouTube has a new feature that allows you to upload video directly from your cell phone to the service. It's already started, but more and more we will see things like the first video/pictures from a news event being uploaded from citizen journalists to services like YouTube and Flickr direct from their cell phones as it happens. If I were CNN, I would create a service to collect this stuff for myself and I would set up a payment system for video or photos that get used on air.