As someone who was creating a reasonably popular 'video podcast' back then, I have a different perspective... Uploading to Google video was incredibly slow rel

As someone who was creating a reasonably popular 'video podcast' back then, I have a different perspective... Uploading to Google video was incredibly slow relative to Youtube. During the period of the 'battle' between the two services, Youtube allowed only very short videos - excluding most useful content, but discouraging piracy (except for very laborious multi part uploads). G'Video on the other hand allowed uploading of essentially any length, although at much lower resolution But it was incredibly laborious, as uploads took hours - and were liable to fail without warning (at least uploading from Europe). I recall there was also an emphasis on adding lots of metadata etc, another barrier to uploading. The social elements of youtube - perhaps in hindsight addicting rather than useful, are rightfully acknowledged. Whats less well remembered is the sheer clunkiness of using Google Video. The service looked and responded much more like a corporate intranet than a website. Still, I - and lots of other 'vidcasters' at the time were sad to see it go. Here's a perspective from the time - from a blogpost I wrote about different video services in 2006 (https://garethstack.com/2006/07/24/the-unavoidable-future-of-entertainment/ https://garethstack.com/2006/07/24/the-unavoidable-future-of...)... "While sites like Youtube and Guba, may or may not have a future primarily as redistributors of broadcast content, they’ve done little to foster the creation of original work. In fact, by restricting the length and size of files which can be uploaded (ostensibly to reduce copyright infringement), YouTube have diminished their chances of becoming a hotbed of original content. Google video, although bravely eschewing any restrictions on the length of uploaded content (whilst foolishly restricting video quality to an extremely low bit rate), does little to foster the community creation or pooling of talent needed to inspire the development of original shows and films. Note, it’s far from clear that it was ever Google’s intention to become a generator of new IP, so Google Video shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a failure"