Google’s experimental Area 120 division will shut down its ‘Threadit‘ tool later this year.
Per a message posted on the Threadit website, the service will shut down on December 19th. Threadit will work until then, but after that date, it won’t be available, and all content will be deleted. The message urges users to download any videos they want to save before then.
Threadit, for those unfamiliar, was a video communication tool that focused on messages rather than live, real-time communication. For example, it enabled video communication between teams in different time zones — one person could record a video message and send it via Threadit, and the recipient could respond when they were ready.
Moreover, the Threadit team will move from Area 120 and join the Google Workspace team to “focus on building immersive, visual collaboration experiences across the platform.” It’s not clear exactly what the Threadit team will work on, but safe bets would be Google Meet or Spaces.
The Threadit shutdown comes after Google reduced funding for Area 120 and killed off several projects. That also came amid an ongoing hiring freeze and other changes, notably the shutdown of Google’s Pixelbook team.
In other Google news, the company is reportedly shifting focus to hardware in a bid to protect itself from regulators and competitors.
If you use Threadit and want to keep your data, you can head to the Threadit website > log in > click your profile image > select Account > click export videos.
Header image credit: Threadit (screenshot)
Source: Threadit Via: 9to5Google
