StreamNation, a service that enables subscribers to stream their personal and owned videos and music directly from its cloud-based storage facilities, announced that it will shut down operations on March 8, leaving subscribers just four weeks to shift or download their media files.
The company cited a technical "roadblock" as making the service too inefficient: large files. "While uploading documents is pretty fast through a normal internet connection, uploading heavy files takes a lot of time," said Jonathan Benayassa, founder and CEO, in a blog post on its website.
StreamNation, which launched in 2013, actually resorted to shipping hard drives to some of its users, and tried to resolve the problem by placing servers in different geographical locations worldwide, but couldn't improve the situation enough.
The shutdown leaves just a few consumer-focused cloud-streaming services in the segment, such as Plex, which offers cloud-based storage, streaming of personal videos and owned videos, as well as media organization and management. Dropbox and Google Drive (NASDAQ: GOOG) also enable streaming from personal storage, though it's best accomplished through third-party apps that take a few steps out of the process.
While StreamNation will disappear, the core startup won't: the company is pivoting to focus on what was previously a side project, named Project Noah. "The objective is to be able to offer the same type of experience as StreamNation, but without the hurdle of uploading. Imagine being able to access all of your media from our cloud without having to upload them!" the company said in the blog post.
"As Project Noah is a completely different product using a different platform, a different business model and a different brand, we have also decided that it is time to discontinue the development of StreamNation and Shutter and to shut down those services" in March, and move forward with its new idea, Benayassa said.
Although its streaming component is shutting down for the time being, PictureLife, the media storage service that it acquired in January 2015, will remain operational. StreamNation subscribers can shift their personal media -- photos and videos, but not movies, TV shows, music or documents -- over to PictureLife before March 8.
Subscribers also have the option of downloading all of their content, including movies and TV shows, music, documents and personal photos and videos, to their personal computer or local storage.
For more:
- see this blog post
- see this Engadget article
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