By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

I have all these videos on my Flip camcorder, and have to manually upload them to sharing services. What a pain. However, the makers of the Flip Video series of camcorders is easing that pain, releasing today the latest version of its FlipShare software with still-easier video sharing.

FlipShare now has something called Flip Channels, which is online storage of videos that you can share with friends and relative. In addition to Flip Channels, you can upload to social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube, and send video emails, all via the FlipShare app.

I was given the chance to use the FlipShare app prior to its release, and if you want to use their FlipShare.com storage, you have to set up an account within the app (shown above top; click to enlarge), then activate it via an email you will receive. After that, you select a video (or more than one), and then say you want to share it via a Flip Channel. You enter emails for those you want to share with, and they get an email alerting them to a new video in that channel.

Each time you upload a new video (once you share a video, it starts uploading to FlipShare.com automatically), they will get an update, sort of like a subscription on YouTube.

I’ve tried sharing videos via YouTube before, and the biggest problem is getting people to become friends if I want to share a video with a selected few, and not the world. I’ve tried the same on Facebook, and it’s easier than YouTube, but not as easy as with a FlipShare.com account.

Of course, the FlipShare software makes it easier to upload to YouTube or MySpace (not FacebooK!?). For YouTube, you can share with the world or privately with 25 people (but therein lies the problem I noted above; only your friends can see it).

All in all, for some videos (like videos of my baby), I prefer to use my FlipShare.com account. I’d rather keep it more private and less public, even with the protections of YouTube or MySpace. What I am unclear of is exactly how much space is available. I have asked but have not heard back yet.

But that’s not all. Nope. They are also releasing an iPhone / iPod touch application that will let you view your FlipShare.com videos on your mobile device. Personally, I can’t wait to see what the video will look like on my new iPhone 3G S.

Here’s what Pure Digital said in the draft press release they gave me:

The innovative new Flip Channels feature enables users to easily share their favorite Flip content with groups of people they designate. Once created, their personal Flip Channels can be instantly viewed online at FlipShare.com or on an iPhone by using the new FlipShare iPhone application, also announced today.

“Flip Video changed the way people use video by making it simple to capture and fun to share,” said Jonathan Kaplan, senior vice president and general manager of the Consumer Business Group at Cisco, which recently acquired Pure Digital Technologies, makers of Flip Video products. “Our latest FlipShare software, with the new Flip Channels feature, takes video sharing to the next level by making it incredibly easy to share video with a friend, a group, or with the world.”

With FlipShare’s new Flip Channels feature, consumers now have a simple way to share their favorite Flip content – both video and snapshots – with many different groups such as friends, family, classmates or teams. Once a user creates a Flip Channel, it can be viewed online at FlipShare.com or on an iPhone using the breakthrough FlipShare application for the iPhone. This new application gives FlipShare users, as well as their friends and family, instant access to their favorite Flip Video content from anywhere.

Update: Here are the details on FlipShare storage:

One person can have up to 500 channels total

One sender can have 500 recipients total

There is a total media limit of 1000 assets which includes both videos and snapshots. One user can have any combination of videos and snapshots that adds up to no more than 1000 total.

There is no limit on the size of the actual asset, so one person might have 1000 videos that are 10 seconds each, whereas another person might have 1000 videos that are 10 minutes each, but both would be limited to 1000 total assets.