Yahoo’s YouTube competitor coming this summer?

Yahoo-video

Yahoo has ambitious plans to take on YouTube with a new video service of its own, according to sources familiar with its plans — and it is reportedly set to make its debut this summer. The company is already in talks with video producers, and it plans to offer them a significantly greater cut of ad revenues in an effort to convince them to switch.

Yahoo’s new service will essentially be a YouTube clone, with videos uploaded by users who have their own channel pages, and take a cut of ad revenues. In a bid to make it an instant success, Yahoo plans to tackle everything video creators currently don’t like about YouTube.

Not only could creators take a significantly greater cut of ad revenues than they do on YouTube, but they may also be given the option of fixed ad rates, which are said to be 50% or 100% higher than those offered by Google. Creators won’t be tied to Yahoo, either, so if they want to upload their videos to both YouTube and Yahoo’s service, they will be free to do so.

Yahoo simply hopes to encourage content producers to upload to its own service first. The company is said to be in talks with popular creators already, and is even targeting those who have been selected as “Google Preferred” producers.

AdAge reports that Yahoo’s video service is part of CEO Marrisa Mayer’s plans to revive the company’s stagnant revenues. The company has already increased the number of ads displayed on its existing videos in recent months, and has plans to produce two original TV series for its streaming videos service Screen.

Yahoo originally planned to launch its new service back in April, AdAge reports, but the project had to be delayed due to “contract issues.”

In earlier contracts presented to creators, Yahoo reportedly stipulated that it would take ownership of video rights whenever clips were shared to Tumblr, its own blogging platform. However, one content creator told AdAge, “anyone who’s done a content deal knows that would never fly.” It’s thought Yahoo has now removed this from the final agreements.