Flickr: Too late to the video party to matter?

Flickr is likely to add video next month, but will it really matter given that the photo sharing site is so late to the game.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington and News.com's Dan Farber both note that Flickr video is coming. This intelligence (Techmeme)--an extension of a long running rumor--was gleaned from Flickr's anniversary party Saturday night.

The big question to me is whether Flickr can do anything in video that will matter? Dan says:

Flickr has been a pure photo site since its inception. Adding video into the mix has to be done in a way acceptable to the community. In other words, launching a Video service primarily to compete more with YouTube would turn the community off. It has to appeal, in an "authentic" way, to the Flickr community.

So what exactly is an authentic presentation of video? Consolidating video and photo accounts could be handy, but what's the real incentive? For instance, if YouTube suddenly launched photo sharing would you move your photos there? Probably not. Simply put, Flickr isn't going to court many YouTube folks. And chances are the overlap between YouTube and Flickr users is large.

Maybe Flickr surprises us and layers some new tagging mechanism or something. Video is worth a shot, but the burden of proof will lie on what Flickr--and the Yahoo bureaucracy cooks up. Anyone have any bright ideas about what Flickr video should be? I'm admittedly stumped.