The Chicago Tribune’s new beta video site at ChicagoLive.com has all of the characteristics of a local video site with functionality that is influenced by blogs.

The site includes featured videos, video of the day, browse and search, the ability to upload your own videos, most viewed and highest rated. Two functions that show a blog influence are “categories” and a tag cloud. A tag cloud is an index using code that shows the most active categories displayed in a large type size while the least active categories have the smallest size.

Click on a link and the next page shows the video player and starts the video automatically. Viewers can rate the video and provide comments.

All of the videos are presented in the brief on-demand format. Unlike some local newspaper video portals such as HamptonRoads.tv, ChicagoLive.com does not appear to have hosted programming.