Google Video

Google's own YouTube, made redundant the day Google bought YouTube

Shut down
19902026

Google Video was Google's video search and hosting service, launched on 25 January 2005 as a search of television transcripts, opened to uploads that April and to paid downloads with the Google Video Store in January 2006. Google's purchase of YouTube in October 2006 made it redundant: uploads ended in 2009, a 2011 plan to delete everything was reversed and the archive moved to YouTube, and hosting stopped on 20 August 2012.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2005
  2. 25 January 2005 Launch
    Google Video launches

    A search of television transcripts, with no video to watch yet.

  3. 13 April 2005 Feature
    Uploads open

    "Google wants your video." Hosting begins, months after YouTube's founding.

  4. 2006
  5. 6 January 2006 Feature
    The Google Video Store

    Paid downloads of CBS shows and NBA games, announced at CES.

  6. 9 October 2006 Decline
    Google buys YouTube

    $1.65 billion for the site that makes Google Video redundant.

  7. 2007
  8. 15 August 2007 Decline
    The store closes

    Purchased videos stop playing; Google refunds them.

  9. 2009
  10. 14 January 2009 Decline
    Uploads end

    Google Video becomes an archive and a search tab.

  11. 2011
  12. 15 April 2011 Shutdown announced
    The deletion notice

    Users get two weeks to save their videos; Google reverses within days.

  13. 2012
  14. 20 August 2012 Shutdown
    Hosting ends

    Remaining videos are moved to YouTube; the address becomes video search.

The site through time

Browse video.google.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Google 2005–2012 Founded Built and run by Google; superseded by Google's own YouTube

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Google bought YouTube in October 2006 and Google Video became a duplicate. Uploads were switched off in January 2009, and on 15 April 2011 Google told users the hosted videos would be deleted, then reversed itself after protests and moved them to YouTube instead. Playback on Google Video ended on 20 August 2012 and the address became a video search page.

Our analysis: Google Video did most things YouTube did and did them earlier, including a paid store, and it lost anyway because YouTube had the audience and the culture. Buying the winner for $1.65 billion was the right decision and it made the in-house product pointless overnight; the six years it took to switch off were about the videos, not the service.

History [edit]

Searching television

Google Video launched on 25 January 2005 as something odd: a search engine for television programmes, indexing closed-caption transcripts and showing stills, with no video to watch. That April Google opened it to uploads, telling anyone with a video to send it in, and it became a hosting service a few months after YouTube's founding. It could handle long files that YouTube could not, and it played back Flash video from a Google page with a Google player, which was enough to make it the home of many early viral clips and full-length documentaries.

In January 2006, at CES, Larry Page announced the Google Video Store: paid downloads and rentals of CBS shows, NBA games and old episodes, wrapped in Google's own DRM. It was the first attempt by a big internet company to sell television by download, and it never took off.

The purchase that killed it

On 9 October 2006 Google agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion, and Google Video was, from that day, the second video site at a company that owned the first. Its search was pointed at YouTube and the rest of the web, the store closed in August 2007 (with refunds, after an outcry over videos that stopped playing under DRM), and in January 2009 uploads were switched off altogether. Google Video became a place where old videos lived and a name for the video tab in Google search.

The deletion that wasn't

On 15 April 2011 Google emailed users that Google Video would stop playback on 29 April and that the hosted videos would be deleted, with two weeks to download them. The protest was loud enough, from archivists in particular, that Google reversed itself within days: the videos would stay up, and Google would build a tool to move them to YouTube. That migration happened through 2011 and 2012, and on 20 August 2012 the hosting side of Google Video was retired for good; the remaining files were auto-migrated to their owners' YouTube accounts. video.google.com has been a video search results page ever since.

The domain today

video.google.com redirects to Google's video search. None of the original hosted videos play there; those that survived did so on YouTube.

Similar projects

Vine Six seconds, looped forever 2013–2017 Periscope Live from anywhere, until the money ran out 2015–2021 Quibi $1.75 billion, six months, gone 2020–2020 Mixer The $100 million assault on Twitch 2016–2020 Justin.tv One man's life stream that became Twitch 2007–2014 Picasa Everyone's first photo library 2002–2016

Sources [edit]

  1. Google wants your video Google (Official Google Blog) 13 April 2005 [archived]
  2. A new year for Google Video Google (Official Google Blog) 6 January 2006 [archived]
  3. Google Video prepares to enter the deadpool for good TechCrunch 15 April 2011 [archived]
  4. Google Video content moving to YouTube YouTube Official Blog 3 July 2012 [archived]
  5. Google shutdowns continue: iGoogle, Google Video, Google Mini, others are killed TechCrunch 3 July 2012 [archived]

Last verified: 15 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).