Webshots, a leading photo-sharing community today launched video sharing capabilities, letting users combine still and video images with text in publicly shared albums.

According to Webshots, their video boasts a 50-percent larger viewing area and nearly 3-times the bitrate of other video sites and gives users free hosting of 100 five-minute video clips, plus an accumulated 10 video clips for every month of membership. Webshots premium members will receive hosting of 250 10-minute clips, plus 25 video for every month of membership.

“As video capabilities become a ubiquitous feature of digital cameras and camera phones, Webshots users expressed a desire to share short video clips alongside the still photos and text of the events they were documenting,” said Martin Green, senior vice president of community, CNET Networks. “Webshots’ integrated sharing of still and video images lets users tell their stories dynamically to friends and family, or connect with others who share their interests.”

The service appears to be having technical issues still, with some requests returning error messages.

Intel will be the inaugural sponsor of Webshots’ video initiative, providing educational resources. The program will highlight the ease of sharing videos with friends and family online.

Along with the launch of video, Webshots today announced Project Spotlight, which is a first-of-its-kind artist grant program designed to identify, reward and spotlight groundbreaking video entertainment on the Web. In addition to original scripted series, the Project will seek out works of documentary film and citizen journalism that exemplify the unique capabilities of Web-based media.

Weekly thematic shows will round out the programming with the best-of-the-best photos and videos from Webshots users. More information on Project Spotlight, including information for submitting programming, will be available soon.

via WebShots