From The Enigma Channel - A Google video (almost two hours long), watch while you still can.
This video will be removed on April 29, 2011. Learn more. However, you can save videos to your hard disk here!
“I'm as baffled as the next guy about the proposed shuttering of Google Video. Why is Google doing it? And why now?
Google video began as an experimental service on the side and as a stop-gap measure to compete with YouTube. It never had any of the social mechanisms of YouTube, and I couldn't figure out why Google didn't just copy YouTube's social aspects.
Instead, Google bought YouTube and left Google Video as a vestige. Google Video ended up as the de facto site for long format video—with a lot of cool documentaries and other obscure "real" productions rather than amateur productions. The classic "The World According to Monsanto" is stored on Google Video and is otherwise hard to find.
The shutdown raises a number of questions. Is this the way Google is now going to operate under Larry Page? This is the way Yahoo does things. It abandons its own sites out-of-the-blue for no apparent reason.”