Maker Studios Will Shut Down Blip as Pioneer Becomes Casualty
When Blip was founded in 2005, it was one of the few destinations for online video series. But the online video world has changed dramatically since then, and Blip's owner, Maker Studios (which is now owned by The Walt Disney Company) no longer sees a future for Blip. It announced that it will close the site on August 20.
Maker sent out a note to users yesterday informing of them of the closure and encouraging them to download any of their own videos that they might not have saved. Creators with a YouTube channel were encouraged to apply to the Maker Gen network.
While Maker hasn't issued a statement detailing the reasons for the closing, the platform likely had a difficult time generating revenue in a space dominated by YouTube. When Maker acquired Blip in 2013, part of the reason was to create an off-YouTube distribution network. "The Blip buy will help Maker create revenue streams outside of Google’s video site. Blip has its own player technology, which might be helpful as Maker looks to create standalone sites for stars like [Felix "PewDiePie"] Kjellberg and others," wrote All Things D at the time.
"Sad to see my baby, @blip.tv finally shutting down. We tried hard guys. Ultimately video is just a really tough business," said Justin Day, one of Blip's founders, in a tweet.
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