Last week Google announced via its Video blog that it will be discontinuing support for video uploads, content already there will remain. This at first was a bit of a shock, NO i said to myself how can they take that free service away, but hold on don’t they own you tube so itsn’t their a bit of an overlap perhaps….
They explained that what they want to do is to focus on the core strength of Google video which from their perspective is the ability to search for video across the web. This is a direct quote from their blog post “Turning down uploads at google video”
We’ve always maintained that Google Video’s strength is in the search technology that makes it possible for people to search videos from across the web, regardless of where they may be hosted. And this move will enable us to focus on developing these technologies further to the benefit of searchers worldwide.
What i think is great about this decision is that Google as they state with most of the products look to innovate often and by that nature they review often to ensure that what they have done fits the market. This is the perfect example of an organisation who built their reputation on simple and easy searching across a complicated platform, focusing their energy on developing that exact thing.
The key lesson from this is that we should always look at what we do and how we do it, then evaluate whether it offers value and look to develop in areas which we are strong or have skills. The process of innovation and developing ideas for Google and for anyone will expand your knowledge and your thinking (this is the personal development path we all have) but it has expanded their core strength into video. This is respect and for that i take my virtual hat off to them.
In the meantime however we are now looking at Vimeo for our online video uploading solution.
A journey through life - Carl's Notepad 