Yahoo has partnered with CurrentTV to create a new rival to Youtube, to profit with the increasing popularity of the user-driven video on web.

CurrentTV is a US cable network co-founded by former US presidential candidate and former vice president Al Gore. The joint venture, dubbed the Yahoo Current Network, will feature content generated by users and paid staff across four categories.

However, unlike other user-video sites where the only reward is a bit of notoriety and several thousand MySpace links, the best videos in each of the four categories will receive $500 and airplay on CurrentTV.

The Yahoo Current Network launch comes one day after Microsoft unveiled a beta version of its Soapbox video-sharing service. Like other video-sharing sites, Yahoo Current Network will allow users to rate, share and comment on videos, as well as subscribe to individual channels and link videos from blogs.

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