Verizon is shutting down its Go90 service on July 31. The U.S.’ largest carrier once had high hopes for the future of G090, but earlier this year suggested that it would be on its way out as the three-year old service just wasn’t drumming up enough excitement with the users it was trying to target, which was the younger millennial crowd. Verizon now states that Go90 will be shutting down following the creation of Oath, and that any technology from Go90 that hasn’t already been rolled into Oath will be incorporated in the near future. Up until the service is completely disabled though, users will still be able to use it to stream content if they wish.
Though Go90 is going away, Verizon is still going to be putting some effort into streaming content, noting that sports, finance, news, and entertainment will be the main focus of those efforts and that it will be building its “digital-first” brands around those categories, highlighting both mobile consumers and 5G applications, which suggests that whatever Verizon’s future streaming plans are they will still be focused on mobile users in addition to its 5G network.
Though Verizon’s streaming plans are still unclear, some of the content found on Go90 will likely be available to Verizon subscribers through another means at some point in the future. This should include some of the original content that was available on the Go90 platform though it is stated that Verizon is uncertain about what it’s going to do for some of the original content that it offers, which means some shows may end up disappearing along with the Go90 service itself. Go90 was originally unveiled and launch over three years ago in an attempt for Verizon to gain ad revenue from the streaming content on the platform. It offered subscribers of the carrier the ability to stream content spanning a wide range of categories from Sports to licensed TV shows, to original content.