It's been a few months since I blogged about the appearance of the Video Search tab on the front page of yahoo.com, and it's time to give you the latest update on our product. Tonight we've shed our "beta" tag and released Yahoo! Video Search 1.0.

One of the reasons we launch a beta product is to get your feedback. We've been listening to what you've told us about video search, and the biggest request wasn't for functionality changes in the product, but for more content in video search. Addressing this was our #1 goal in this video search release.

So what's changed in 1.0? We've partnered up with some major content publishers to fortify our content offering, including MTV, Buena Vista (including the latest clips and trailers for The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy), CBS News, Bloomberg (check out the latest news on the Federal Reserve), Reuters, The Discovery Channel, Scripps Networks (the good people who produce Home & Garden TV and The Food Network), VH1, and more.

However, great video search isn't just about content from large publishers, it's also about the long tail content from smaller publishers and individuals as well. To that end, we're indexing the Internet Archive's Moving Image Archive. One of the great things about the Moving Image Archive is that it encompasses a wide range of content -- everything from the Prelinger Archives (a collection of over 48,000 "ephemeral films" from 1927 through 1987), to user-created Open Source Movies hosted by the Internet Archive, and other collections of video. (One of my favorites is the animated legos from Brick Films. Don't miss seeing their version of Grand Theft Auto done entirely in Lego).

Those of you who are budding independent filmmakers, or think you've created the next Numa Numa Dance, we're keeping you in the fold too. Besides making enhancements to our web crawl which indexes video files published online, you can also submit a Media RSS feed directly to us of the video on your website.

If you want someone to host your video content for you as well, you can have your video hosted by sites such as OurMedia, the Internet Archive's Open Source Movies, or any other hosting service that publishes video files directly to the web or with Media RSS. We applaud these hosting efforts -- it's our goal that once you publish your video content on any hosting service, we'll index the content in Video Search and help our audience find your content. Supporting an open model for video hosting gives you the most choices, so you can find the publishing solution that works best for you.

So whether you're a video consumer or a publisher, we've got you covered. Stop on by the new Video Search and take a look.

Andy Volk
Product Manager - Yahoo! Video Search