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YouTube is doing some changing.  Not satisfied with being just a destination for user generated content, it announced it is updating its APIs to become a video server for your applications.  No longer will YouTube video be confined to the familiar chromed player skin, now developers can stick the videos into non traditional players.

YouTube’s latest API offerings allow anyone building a website or software application that is connected to the Internet to upload videos straight to YouTube; let users comment, rate and favorite the videos; and customize and control the Flash player in which the videos are played.

EA Games, U. Berkley, Tivo and Animoto are all said to be using the new APIs to build interesting advances.

The number of possible new applications is endless. Electronic Arts has enabled gamers to capture videos of fantastical user-generated creatures from their upcoming game, Spore, and publish these directly into YouTube. The University of California, Berkeley is bringing free educational content to the world, enhancing their open source lecture capture and delivery system to publish videos automatically into YouTube. Animoto enables its users to create personalized, professional-quality music videos from their own photos and upload them directly to YouTube. Tivo is providing its users a rich and highly participative YouTube viewing experience on the television.

If estimates are correct, this is a major turning point in YouTube’s history.  On the outside it seems like a smart move but I have to wonder will losing the YouTube branding, as the updated APIs will allow hurt it?  What do you think?

Read [C|Net]