Google Video
Google Video was a free video hosting service, originally launched by Google on January 25, 2005.[1]
This article is about the defunct video hosting service. For other uses, see Google Videos (disambiguation).
Type of site
Multilingual
Yes
Recommended
January 25, 2005
Discontinued after August 20, 2012
Initially focused on searching TV program transcripts,[2] it soon evolved to allow hosting video clips on Google servers and embedding onto other websites, akin to YouTube.[3]
With Google's acquisition of YouTube, new video uploads ceased in 2009,[4] and the service was ultimately shut down on August 20, 2012.[5]
Thereafter, the web address video.google.com has been reused to host Google Videos search engine.
Video content[edit]
Google Video was geared towards providing a large archive of freely searchable videos. Besides amateur media, Internet videos, viral ads, and movie trailers, the service also aimed to distribute commercial professional media, such as televised content and movies.
A number of educational discourses by Google employees were recorded and made available for viewing via Google Video. The lectures were done mainly at the employees' former universities. The topics covered Google technologies and software engineering but also include other pioneering efforts by major players in the software engineering field.
On January 6, 2009, the Google Video Store launched to sell downloads through Google Video. The service launched with independent films Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks, and Waterborne, as well as content from media partners CBS, the NBA, The Charlie Rose Show, and Sony BMG.[6] Initially, the content of a number of broadcasting companies (such as ABC, NBC, CNN) was available as free-streaming content or stills with closed captioning. In addition, the U.S. National Archive used Google Video to make historic films available online, but this project was later discontinued.[7]
Google Video also searched other non-affiliated video sites from web crawls. Sites searched by Google Video in addition to their own videos and YouTube included GoFish, ExposureRoom, Vimeo, Myspace, Biku, and Yahoo! Video.
Market adoption[edit]
Despite downloading being available in multiple formats, being less restrictive on video uploads, and Google being tremendously well-known, Google Videos had only a minor share from the online video market, amassing around 2.5 million videos uploaded.
While initially only available in the United States, over time Google Videos had become available to users in more countries and could be accessed from many other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan.
Regardless of general availability, content providers were given the opportunity to limit access to video files to only users from certain countries of residence. However, methods of circumventing geographical filtering existed.
Shutdown[edit]
On October 9, 2006, Google bought former competitor YouTube. Google announced on June 13, 2007, that the Google Video search results would begin to include videos discovered by their web crawlers on other hosting services, in YouTube and user uploads.[12] Thereafter, search result links opened a frameset with a Google Video header at the top, and the original player page below it.
As of August 2007, the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program ended. Users who previously purchased a video from Google Video were no longer able to view them. Credits for users were made available as values for Google Checkout and were valid for 60 days.[13][14]
In 2009, Google ended the ability for users to upload videos to Google Video. Videos that were already uploaded continued to be hosted.[15] Later, other navigation features were retired, such as ability to cross-reference videos back to now-inactive user accounts, as well as selection of top videos.
On April 15, 2011, Google announced that they would stop hosting user-uploaded videos. The plan would make videos unavailable for public viewing on April 29 and removed from users' accounts in 28 days.[16] On April 22, 2011, a week after the announcement, Google announced that due to feedback they would not be removing videos at this time. They will start automatically migrating videos to YouTube instead, as well as providing easier tools for account holders to do so themselves.[17][16]
On August 20, 2012, the video hosting service was ultimately shut down and the remaining Google Video content was automatically migrated to YouTube. By default, the videos were set to private but the original content owners could later publish them as public videos if they desired.[18]
As of 2021, the video search engine continues to operate as Google Videos. The domain previously associated with Google Video is now internally used to store videos uploaded to Google Photos and YouTube.