Is Yahoo! Plotting Its Rival To YouTube?

Yahoo is ramping up talks with video producers and plans to premiere a rival to Google's video service later this summer, according to people briefed on their plans.

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Yahoo had intended to unveil the new service at its upfront presentation for advertisers in April, but contract issues have held the project back.

While YouTube is by far the biggest video sharing site on the web -- 1 billion active monthly users and counting -- it is by no means the only business operating in this space and Yahoo believes that it can attract producers and creators by offering a better split of advertising revenue.

Like YouTube, creators will be allowed to establish their own channel pages and host their videos on Yahoo. Like YouTube's video player, Yahoo's video player will be embeddable on other sites.

Those that sign a contract with Yahoo will get a publishing dashboard and have the ability to distribute across Yahoo properties including the home page and blogging service Tumblr, as well as a network of non-Yahoo sites.

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While the most popular YouTube stars can leverage their fanbase to score valuable partnerships with brands, the revenue that's actually generated for creators off YouTube itself is often meager except for a high-powered few.

Yahoo is also offering the option of a fixed ad rate said to be 50% or 100% higher than YouTube's average net ad rate. YouTube averages a $9.68 cost per-thousand impressions in the U.S., according to video company Tubemogul, before revenue sharing.

Yahoo isn't requiring exclusivity in its contracts so creators can simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and Yahoo. Instead, Yahoo is trying to present revenue terms that would persuade creators to upload a video to Yahoo first.

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