AOL is on a product-cutting spree. In addition to the shuttering of XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile And Bluestring, the company will also be shutting down the AOL Video Uploads service starting this week.
Users must move their videos prior to December 18, when the service closes for good and the videos will no longer be available. AOL is recommending that users transfer videos to Motionbox, a New York based video sharing and editing startup that we first covered in 2006.
The FAQ that AOL will distribute to users this week is below. This change doesn’t appear to affect AOL Video itself, which focuses on professional content from Hulu, CBS and other sources.
AOL Video Uploads
Q. When will the AOL Video Uploads close?
Effective December 18th, 2008 , AOL Video Uploads (uncutvideo.aol.com
) will be closed and all videos stored will no longer be accessible through AOL Video Uploads. AOL has evaluated several personal video offerings, and believes Motionbox, a leader in online personal video, to be the best suited to handle the needs of AOL Video Upload users. Motionbox is FREE and includes some great features. We are recommending users go through a simple transfer process to move their videos to Motionbox, and also giving them the option to download or delete videos stored on the site.
Q. When/how will users be notified?
A. Anyone who has stored videos on AOL Video Uploads will receive an official AOL e-mail the week of November 17, 2008.
Q. What are the options for retrieving video from AOL Video Uploads?
A. AOL recommends users transfer their videos to Motionbox, a free service that supports all of the features users enjoy with AOL Video Uploads.
Basic Motionbox service is FREE and includes:
- Easy transfer of your existing videos from AOL Video Uploads.
- High-quality video playback, with full-screen viewing options.
- Sharing, with privacy settings to help protect your content.
- Fast, reliable uploads of almost any video format.
- Simple editing and mixing tools so you can trim and combine video clips.
- Video embedding on your blog, profile page, or Web site.Additionally, users may download or delete their videos from the AOL Video Uploads before December 18, 2008.
Q. What happens to videos if users do not take action before December 18, 2008?
A. After December 18, 2008, users will no longer be able to access videos through the AOL Video Uploads site. However, before December 18, AOL can help users move their existing videos to Motionbox® to continue accessing them online. Users may also download files from AOL Video Uploads or delete them.
If a user doesn’t delete the video or transfer to Motionbox, it will be removed from AOL Video Uploads as part of the closing of the service.
See all
Post
I think its only a matter of time before we see more shut downs and layoffs. If there is anyone out there uploading videos on finance or business, check out http://equedia.com
Might be interesting for people who play the stock market - not that anyone is investing in these times.
Who cares??
It never had a chance.
Mike
http://www.wannadevelop.com
Neither does any of your domains.
Recession don’t effect porno video sharing business! It’s to HARD and always UP!
This is just another proove of what others already said and what I posted here Web 2.0 bubble bursts: 10 reasons why (you should be happy): there are just too many services and you have only soo little time
AOL video was too late in the game and like most others never had any solid plans for monetizing the service. But some of their recent changes like their weather channel and elections coverage does seem to have created some goodwill. Anyways maybe it is too late for AOL.
Hmm, I looked up their weather.aol.com site and actually it is pretty cool. Maybe AOL is trying to fight it back. But then…
One of many services that will sadly bite the dust over the coming months as people hunker down through the economic problems.
Jon
Thanks for the info, I’ve just downloaded my 50 Flip videos from Aol.
I guess I am not the only Flip user who used AOL because its the website proposed in the Flip software to store and share the videos…
I believe a lot of Flip users will be badly surprised.
I have been uploading videos to http://veoh.com with my Flip and it works great.
it was for the fail.
aol, what’s that?
aol used video egg on the backend to upload videos. Since video egg is going out of business so must aol video upload.
And mike yer list is wrong. Aol sold xdrive. It isn’t shutting down unless the new owners say so
Also anyone who thinks this is because of the economic crisis is an idiot. Deals like this have been in the works for almost a year.
Who did they sell Xdrive to?
It’s interesting that 2 staples of web 2.0 (user generated content, and social networking) have yet to prove their worth in dollars. If Facebook and Youtube can’t turn people into profits, what’s that mean for the rest of the industry?
Agreed. And yet, tons of clones of both sites keep launching and/or getting funding. Most people are simply sheep and that doesn’t change just because someone has $200M under management or because they can write highly scalable Java/ python/ ruby web applications.
They are only a handful of people with truly original ideas and visions, and it is impossible to hear them amongst all the noise created by wannabes.
Note that Motion Box uploads are limited to 750mb before they ask for $30/year. The aren’t in the top 100,000 sites on Alexa. I think Veoh would be a much better bet and higher quality as well.
I just transferred my videos from AOL to Motionbox and it says “Unlimited Storage Space” in my profile page
Well it’s nothing new, they got out of providing a useful e-mail service over a decade ago!
*Exists Stage Left to sounds of groaning from the audience*
Thanks for this news item. I used it for Mobuzz.tv today. This is a trend that is happening. Brightcove is doing the same on Dec. 17th, crackle already did, there are a number of other video share sites that went under. Youtube, as long as Google is behind them, seems the safest bet.
http://dailybuzz.mobuzz.tv/sho.....h_flypaper