BREAKING: Veoh shuts off service in many countries
Apparently if you don’t have a lot of viewers in a country looking over your video site, you shut down their access. Veoh, a video site with content from FOX, CBS, NBC as well as YouTube videos, has blocked access to the site in several foreign nations. Andrew Baron, creator of RocketBoom, first posted on Twitter and his blog that access to the site has been forbidden in many nations around the world. At the time, Google News and Techmeme had yet to pick up on it. Veoh’s Wikipedia page now has a section for availability throughout the world, listing the countries that cannot access it.
“So far users from Asia, Europe and South America such as : Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Luxembourg, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Guam, Jamaica, Barbados, El Salvador, Hungary, Malta, Macedonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Colombia, Cyprus, Romania, the Cayman Islands, Guadeloupe, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Panama, Czech Republic, Turkey, Croatia, Lithuania, Egypt, Bulgaria, Serbia, Iceland, Bermuda, Thailand, Brunei, Honduras, and Nicaragua have also reported being blocked, receiving the same message for their country/region.”
The page simply gives the user a message saying “Veoh is no longer available in [country name].” In an email from Gaude Lydia Paez, Veoh’s Senior Director of Public Relations, Veoh has “decided to concentrate on the 33 markets in which we have the most viewers and cease service in other markets” because they are going to focus on “a number of significant product and platform developments that we believe will greatly enhance the experience we offer to our users.”
Via [Dembot]
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Thank you for letting us know about this handy feature. I think many video applications could take this and run with it as often some platforms don’t work in certain countries.
Although I never heard from Veoh (I don’t use a lot of video and limit myself to YouTube), I think what they do is smart.
on June 1, 2008 at 08:00 PM - LINKwtf this is total bs it even blocked Oregon in the United States?
on June 1, 2008 at 08:25 PM - LINK2 bad i can`t see many videos because this people make discrimination
on June 2, 2008 at 07:37 PM - LINKbut this is the life and u can`t change it
this is not good....i will die....please save me....come back...VEOHHHH PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
on June 4, 2008 at 07:26 AM - LINKI find this horribly unfair! Why does Veoh believe that limiting the access of viewers is a good solution to develop their activities?
on June 6, 2008 at 04:25 PM - LINKAnd for Monica Benut, no, it is NOT smart. Would you still say that if the program you use, Youtube, was blocked in your country? I don’t think so…
I really can’t believe that even in our days sites can make such obvious discriminations and no one takes any measures.I can’t understand the need to ban different countries from their server just so they can say that they concentrate on other countries.Why don’t they start banning wemen and black people from their servers like in the ‘good’ old days.Every site normally provides the same thing for all users(except the special sections) what profit can you make by banning someone who just wants to watch a movie in peace and just relax?
on June 19, 2008 at 04:37 PM - LINKThe <<decided to concentrate on the 33 markets in which we have the most viewers and cease service in other markets>> thing is just a cover up .... Veoh used to have loads of users from romania , I don’t think they will earn something from limiting our acces to the site ( i mean .... it’s obvious , more users , more traffic , more money for them ) ..... It’s just discrimination .... I think they wanna make us buy their services ...
on June 28, 2008 at 07:08 AM - LINKthis is not fair at all....and from what i saw on the internet there were quite a lot of users from romania.....this is called discrimination and the reason they shut off their services for some countries is quite an illogical one....
on June 29, 2008 at 10:47 AM - LINKIt’s all about discrimination here ! And I call it stupidity! It’s just God knows what kind of cover up! I just hate them!
on July 6, 2008 at 10:53 AM - LINKIt was a big shock for me when Veoh decided to forbid access in some countries,including mine.But I find replacements,maybe not so good but Working.I will never use Veoh again even for free.I do not belive that ceasing the services in other countries will give them any benefits (anyone with minimum knowledge of marketing will see) so it’s political issues here or just discrimination.And Monica maybe u could tell me/us why do you think this decision is smart...or you at least.
on July 21, 2008 at 08:29 PM - LINKtotal bs, veoh has taken over all the media services i always watch video on online, why don’t they just totally shut down and let everything return to normal, every site i go on veoh, veoh, veoh, again fo u mf
on August 1, 2008 at 09:38 PM - LINKFirst of all, the Internet itself has the purpose of making available freely, for everyone lots of resources.
If sites (big ones) begin to ban users in advance and restrict their market share, they just take away one of the best advantages of the Internet…
I’m afraid that no one can now sit against the current and expect a revolution and veoh just does a big mistake by forcing the Internet users into separation.
This very word, the separation, is the source of many bad things nowadays… see the confrontations taking place in Georgia.
And I have to remark… maybe users from other countries that are left out from veoh are not so many in number or maybe they don’t care so much about it, but only here there are at least 7 of us from Romania that express our dissatisfaction with veoh’s initiative.
In our country, video hosting sites are quite popular… if our market is not a somewhat significant one, then I wonder what’s the amount of bucks coming out of other markets that makes ours so disposable…
So far everyone’s free to take their choices but I don’t think limiting is a wise idea.
on August 12, 2008 at 12:14 PM - LINKWell they mentioned they are going to “focus on a number of significant product and platform developments that we believe will greatly enhance the experience we offer to our users” but the actual thing is they want PROFIT and they can’t PROFIT on countries like Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Luxembourg, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Guam, Jamaica, Barbados, El Salvador, Hungary, Malta, Macedonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Colombia, Cyprus, Romania, the Cayman Islands, Guadeloupe, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Panama, Czech Republic, Turkey, Croatia, Lithuania, Egypt, Bulgaria, Serbia, Iceland, Bermuda, Thailand, Brunei, Honduras, and Nicaragua
on August 15, 2008 at 05:31 AM - LINKHmm… Interesting… First time I see something like this. Maybe the decision is related to content providers in those countries… How can I discuss this with Veoh’s Marketing and Sales Representatives?
on August 18, 2008 at 05:40 AM - LINKIn Lithuania is somewhere 2.5 mill people. 300 00 teens… because of our economic just mayby half of teens have compiuters, many of then dony know english well so mayby 10 000 people use veoh and we cant change that couse there just are not many people so veoh dont get so much costumer (compere to Germany and so on...) About Luxenburg I dont even have to say… Just diskrimination.
on August 19, 2008 at 01:34 PM - LINKAs you can see from the replies and many other forums Romania has alot of viewers...so I...and many others would like a clear explanation as to why ban acces to Romania?
on August 25, 2008 at 05:53 PM - LINKI agree with Ionut , there are a lot of people from Romania who used to watch veoh, so the reason is fake, they have ban Romania because they are afraid of an atack on their site from romanian hackers. I think that Romania has a lot viewers so they should stop telling lies and tell us the real reason.
on August 27, 2008 at 04:31 AM - LINKWell, at first i was very surprised Veoh banned acces to the site to Romania. I sent them numerous e-mails asking for the reason why this happened. They never replyed to me althought they say they will. Personally, i think this is just a classic case of discrimination, promoted by some people with narrow minds and big egoes that cover up their discrimination under marketing policy. Actually, more visitors meeans more revenue for a site so the “excuse” they offered does not hold up. For Veoh to act in such a discriminatory way will only result in bad publicity about them. Thank God the internet is a huge place, and there are other sites with quality services that will benefit from their “so called profitable policy” that in the long run will cause them only losses. Such a bad image will not be errased any time soon.
on September 1, 2008 at 06:44 AM - LINKPersonally, now i watch megavideo and i am satisfied with their services and content. I can only encourage more people to develop sites with video content. The more, the merrier, and nobody will be affected by the “dissaperence “ of veoh.