Veoh has started an interesting turn of events. Reports are coming from all over the world saying that access to Veoh is restricted based on where you live. Andrew Baron of RocketBoom fame posted an entry on Twitter this morning saying that Veoh had inexplicably been blocked for no reason all of a sudden. From Veoh’s Wikipedia Page:

“So far users from Asia, Europe and South America such as : Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, St.Kitts and Nevis, 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, Bahamas, and Nicaragua have also reported being blocked, receiving the same message for their country/region.”

I submitted an email to Gaude Lydia Paez, Veoh’s Senior Director of Public Relations, asking what the situation was. Here’s their response:

Hi Zach,

Thanks for contacting me with your question – we appreciate the opportunity to weigh in as you write your article.

Veoh has decided to focus its resources on a number of significant product and platform developments that we believe will greatly enhance the experience we offer to our users. In tandem with these efforts, we have decided to concentrate on the 33 markets in which we have the most viewers and cease service in other markets.

We understand that is frustrating to many of our viewers in those markets, but we are confident that this decision will not only allow us to build an even better product but also expand internationally with better quality in the future.

I hope this helps – please feel free to contact me anytime with questions.

Many thanks,

Gaude

While focusing forces on developing their services where they have the most viewership makes some sense, why they are essentially IPs based on their geographical location makes absolutely no sense and will most likely backfire. Let’s just hope that no other services take this route or the internet could grow to be a very ugly place.