The news broke at Flickr's fourth-anniversary party in San Francisco, according to online sources. Despite Yahoo's 2005 purchase of Flickr, the new video-sharing service will run independently of Yahoo Video. When Yahoo acquired Flickr, it folded its native photo-sharing program into Flickr.
Dozens of adult websites use video-sharing sites like YouTube to promote themselves, typically with PG-13-rated teaser clips on sites that don't allow adult content.
Mr. Skin VP of Business Development Derek Meklir told XBIZ that his company promotes its content on 10-20 video-sharing sites — and that Flickr's new service will probably join that group.
"As new services become available in the video-sharing universe, we are evaluating each service and deciding if our viral content and the new service are a good match," he said. "We are expanding our presence across tube sites in general, but only as we see fit."
Currently, Mr. Skin produces original content for these video-sharing sites, including YouTube, MySpace and iFilm, but Meklir added that video viral-marketing composes only a small part of his company's promotional efforts.
Adult industry professional Media, who is the vice president of online sales at Girls Gone Wild, told XBIZ that he wasn't sure if his company would use Flickr's new service for promotion. He also said that there are a lot of Girls Gone Wild videos on YouTube that his company didn't approve.
"I'm not totally sure about half of the clips on YouTube," he said, adding that Girls Gone Wild will probably invoke the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to have such videos removed.
According to comScore Media Metrix, YouTube accounts for one-third of all videos watched online. MySpace draws six percent of video traffic, while Yahoo Video attracts only 3.2 percent.
Flickr's online community currently boasts 23 million contributors.