In a timely move, Flickr has finally made some adjustments to its mobile site. iPhone and iPod Touch users will get a snazzy new upgrade – viewable mobile video.

Yahoo eventually plans to add mobile video support for other phones, including the T-Mobile G1 and Nokia’s N-Series phones. According to Wired, those phones were already included in the testing process so it’s now just a matter of ‘when’, not ‘how’?

On first glance, Flickr mobile at m.flickr.com looks slick and loads decently even on an EDGE connection. The menu structure has been tweaked to highlight social features such as recent Contacts activity. Users may now also comment or favourite photos from their phone. Adding or finding new contacts on your phone is now far easier.

What of the video? Well, Flickr has a 90-second limit for videos. And if you’re not using an iPhone as yet, no video playback. According to the Wired writer, rotating the screen 90 degrees will get the video played in landscape mode though it may not work on all files.

Purportedly the video quality is impressive, due to the new video platform Yahoo is working  on. The transcoder will convert any uploaded video to H.264, with Yahoo having a view to opening it up for independent publishers and developers.

One strength of the platform is its non-dependence on Flash. It’s even viewable now on the iPhone via Mobile Firefox as well as Opera Mobile, not just the Mobile Safari browser.

What might put off mobile phone video enthusiasts is the rather restrictive 90-second video cap. It’s a wonder why Flickr doesn’t just add more video functionality via paid options – perhaps that is in the works once Yahoo’s video platform really gets off the ground. So far, Flickr’s mobile site is a great improvement but with rival sites like Ovi offering more flexible video options at a better price (free), Flickr should still watch its back.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, December 7th, 2008 at 10:46 pm under Cell phones, Internet.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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