I think the services are often kept separate because they are targeting different audiences. Yahoo Photos, for example, is more for the casual users while people using Flickr are a little more advanced. Or at least that is what I have read before. If they eliminate the service then they risk losing some of their users to a competitor.

I have to say I agree with ryan on the point of the services, but that can prove to be the downfall of one or both of the services because of their inability to market one product to the 2 crowds, the tech savvy early adopters and the more tech inept general public. It’s fundamental to the success of technology products and services as well as Internet start-ups that you can “Cross The Chasm” (<–great book on the subject) and market your services beyond the tech savvy to the general public…that’s the true sign of successful design and marketing.

I actually remember them discussing this a while back myself…and was extremely excited to hear it, because that service would have been immensely useful to me. As I will often be watching a documentary or news program that I need a transcript of in order to source information for personal research and writing, or for research papers for school. I would often find myself calling and emailing stations like CNBC asking for a copy of their transcript (for free or for a fee), and they would simply reply we can get you a copy of the show on VHS that would arrive at my address several weeks upon ordering it. That simply wouldn’t help me, because it was anything but timely, and was more difficult to transfer the information..seeing as I would have to listen and write/type it all down at the same time it was playing. I really hope Google, or someone else does this in the future, it would make research and sourcing information for me, incredibly easier, as so many websites for tv networks, simply do not maintain transcripts for their show after they air, let alone post those transcripts online for people to read.

Yahoo! kind of has both forms of video:
-News/TV videos (although somewhat hidden and many videos are Plus only)
-YouTube like videos

Here’s the URL the player shows me. This URL probably won’t work for you, however. If you look at news stories it often says “related video” with a javascript link to the video player
< [cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com]>