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Wall Street analysts have singled out video as the next big thing in online services.

Earlier this year, analysts at UBS said they were "particularly excited about the potential of video ads and other rich media possibilities" to drive online revenues.

Morgan Stanley’s West Coast team announced that "the thing we were most excited about" was the launch of Google Video, the internet advertising company's video search system.

Yahoo! is also concentrating on building online communities while working on bringing the internet to television sets through its "Beyond the Browser" project.

"The penetration of broadband [high-speed internet access] means online video isn't being viewed as a luxury any more," Simon Gunning, Yahoo!'s director of entertainment for Europe, said.

Yahoo! has its own site that allows users to upload their own content in the US. It would not comment on whether it plans roll it out in other territories but did stress what it sees as the differences between its own site and the YouTube model.

"Users come to us for services ranging from video to e-mail and we have a very mature business model," Mr Gunning said.

"YouTube, meanwhile, is fantastically democratic but I don't think it is too radical to say a very high proportion of the content there is not of a terribly high standard and of limited use when it comes to attracting advertising."

Google, the world's leading online advertising company, is also concentrating on video and today announced the launch of its Google Video service in the UK.

The Google service allows users to download content to handheld devices such as iPods and Sony’s PSP. The company's deals with its partners, which include ITN, the news provider, and FC Barcelona, the football club, means they are spared having to provide bandwidth capacity to allow content to be downloaded.

Joanna Shields, Google's European director of partneships told Times Online this morning that the company feels it is the "only group capable of supporting a truly global video-sharing site".

Microsoft, Yahoo! amd YouTube, for three, would beg to differ.

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