Remember go90, the video service that Verizon launched in late 2015? Well it's time to pour one out for go90, because it's begin discontinued.
Verizon today confirmed that it's ending go90. A report from Digiday originally said that Verizon has been telling its content partners that it will end the go90 service by July 31 and return the shows and content rights back to its production partners. Verizon then confirmed the news with an official statement:
“Following the creation of Oath, Go90 will be discontinued. Verizon will focus on building its digital-first brands at scale in sports, finance, news and entertainment for today’s mobile consumers and tomorrow’s 5G applications.”
go90 originally launched in October 2015 with a mix of content from The Daily Show, Food Network, IGN, and Vice as well as original content. You could also follow your favorite shows on the service, get recommendations from other go90 users, and sign up for Crews to chat with other fans of certain shows.
The go90 service never seemed to gain much traction with consumers, though it did win an Oscar for a "Dear Basketball" short film that it made with Kobe Bryant. Now it's being reported that employees that'd worked on go90 will be relocated into various teams of Oath, the digital media branding and advertising subsidiary of Verizon that includes AOL and Yahoo. It's rumored that Verizon spent a total of $1.2 billion on go90.
It's not too surprising to hear that go90 is being discontinued since it didn't seem to catch on, but it's never good to hear that a service is being killed off. The good news is that it sounds like the people that were working on go90 will be moved around rather than let go, so at least there's that.
Did you ever try go90?
