Yahoo made a break for the front of the Internet video pack last night, launching a retooled version of Yahoo Video, its well-trafficked but heretofore uninspired video-hosting service. The buzz online is that the upgrade is overdue, and may well push Yahoo ahead of current video leaders YouTube and MySpace Videos. The San Jose Mercury News reports that the new Yahoo Video, unlike the old, will allow users to upload their own movies, and goes one "step further by integrating the amateur content with professional videos from the likes of ABC News, CBS's "60 Minutes," the Discovery Channel, and CNN. This, says the Merc, "appears to position the Sunnyvale company for a future in Internet television."

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington also finds the new site promising, noting in particular that Yahoo plans to promote popular videos on its home page. But he wishes the new service was integrated with Flickr, the popular photo-sharing site Yahoo purchased last year. Flickr doesn't currently let people upload videos, but Arrington thinks it would make sense to add video features to Flickr, too: "People will upload videos on Yahoo Video to get distribution and fame," he writes. "People will upload videos to Flickr for sharing mostly with friends and family, and to have a safe long-term place to store them. I'm much more interested in the latter."