With the recession affecting everyone (big and small), it probably came to no surprise that Google was shutting down (or stunting) a few services ranging from Google Notebook, to Jaiku to even Google Video (as mentioned by TechCrunch).
While many BlogSpot users may not be familiar (or use) the first two services, the last one may affect them tremendously as Blogger’s video upload feature is powered by Google Video.
(Google Video Blog) In a few months, we will discontinue support for uploads to Google Video. Don’t worry, we’re not removing any content hosted on Google Video — this just means you will no longer be able to upload new content to the service. 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.
Currently BlogSpot users are able to upload an unlimited amount of video to their blogs, which are hosted (but not searchable) on Google Video.
With the upcoming recession, Google may be looking to reduce costs by either removing unlimited video uploads for BlogSpot users completely, or simply switch users towards YouTube and Picasa Albums (the latter who already host videos for Picasa fans).
The Blogger team has not yet commented via their corporate blog (or Twitter) on whether the Google Video’s uploading shutdown will affect them, but hopefully they will update everyone fairly soon.
Update (1/16): Blogger responded via Twitter: “No, Blogger video uploads are not affected.”
