To be honest, I thought Google Video had long ago gone away and become part of YouTube, so I was surprised yesterday to get an email from Google, letting me know that “Later this month, hosted video content on Google Video will no longer be available for playback.” A few years ago, we could no longer upload videos into Google Video and now playback is packing its doors.
For many years, I loved Google Video. It provided me with a relatively safe place to upload and share videos, and then embed them, with very little worries about students clicking back to an inappopriate site. I do remember when Google bought Youtube, and I figured, that would be it for Google Video. It took longer than I expected, but long ago, I made the shift over to Vimeo (which gives me much more flexibility on embedding, although I pay an annual fee).
Google is allowing us to download any videos from Google Video. By the end of the month, the videos will be gone and the site will disappear from the video landscape. As I was looking over the nearly 100 videos that I still have on Google Video, I had some nostalgia flashes around various projects during that time period, which began for me in 2006. I was just learning about video and about hosting video, and it was all experimental for me (maybe it still is).
Three of the videos are claymation stories that my three boys and I made here at home, as I was toying with how to bring stopmotion into the classroom. The stories were written by my oldest son and the movies were a collaborative venture by the family.
Although these videos will expire in about two weeks, here are some of the videos that I uncovered from my files:
Peace (in the last gasp of Google Video),
Kevin