Yahoo! cuts back online video editing service Jumpcut

Yahoo! appears to be slowly pulling the plug on Jumpcut, the company's web-based video editing application. When you go to upload videos, you now get a message saying that Jumpcut is no longer accepting uploads. Users will be able to continue remixing videos that they or other users have already uploaded for the foreseeable future, but no new videos can be added to the site.

Yahoo! recommends users who want to continue uploading and sharing videos use Flickr. But there are a few major differences between Jumpcut and Flickr. First, Flickr users don't get the advanced editing tools that Jumpcut offers. And second, you currently need to pay for a Flickr Pro account to upload videos. So what Yahoo! is really doing here is driving users to YouTube and other free web video services.

Jumpcut showed a lot of promise. I think there's a need for a service like this, which allows users to upload videos and then perform some basic cut and paste edits, alter the soundtrack, or add subtitles and other effects. Not everyone has or needs Windows Movie Maker or iMovie on their computers, making a web-based service appealing. But Jumpcut always offered a walled garden approach. Users could upload and edit videos. But they couldn't export them. While you could embed Jumpcut videos on any web site, you couldn't save the finished video to your desktop or export it to YouTube.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: jumpcut, video-editing, web-video