Facebook has officially launched their video sharing and uploading platform.

The intentions were announced on Thursday in the midst of numerous announcements about their new, more open API platform (more thoughts on this in the coming days).

There are two important things you should know about the video launch:

* You can’t embed videos outside the Facebook service.

* Uploading applications are built into the service, meaning you can record and send videos directly to friends from a webcam, camcorder, or cameraphone.

It seems that Facebook, is again, doing it their own way when it comes to being their own, closed ecosystem. The fact that you can’t embed their videos outside the Facebook universe is certainly going to limit the number of views these videos get, but allows Facebook users to take advantage of tagging and news updates that make staying within the Facebook universe such a good experience. Facebook, as they will tell you until they are blue in the face, is a utility, not a media property (a la MySpace).

The uploading technology may actually be designed to prevent a YouTube-like legal fight. Facebook wants users to upload videos of their lives — not clips from television shows. The way the application is built seems destined to ensure that is what happens (although folks might find ways around that).

Mashable has some coverage of this as well. A good read.

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