Qik, the video streaming service bought by Skype for $150 million in January 2011, will close down on April 30 2014.
The company was founded in 2006 and had an estimated 5 million users at the time of the acquisition, but a post on the Qik website explains that now — three years later — it has become redundant.
Why are you retiring Qik?
We are retiring Qik as the Qik video messaging technology has now been incorporated into Skype. Users can now enjoy a great experience on Skype with features such as audio and video calling, instant messaging and video messaging with contacts in their Skype and Microsoft networks.
The closure will see the Qik mobile apps removed from app stores while users who have already downloaded them will find that they no longer work.
In addition, all videos that have been uploaded, shared or embedded on the Web will no longer be available. The company recommends that users save content that they wish to keep via the online dashboard, which allows direct downloads or file transfers to a Microsoft One Drive account.
Qik cutomers who have paid for the service beyond the cut-off date will be refunded accordingly, the company confirms.
The announcement was actually first made (quietly) in January, but emails confirming the shutdown were only sent out to Qik users on Wednesday.
The service was one of the first video streaming applications that was used here on barganews and calling into their site to see what was going on brought up a couple of lost videos that we publish here once again just before they are lost forever.