Looks like Google Tags wasn’t the only product on the chopping block today — now Google Video, the mostly-forgotten service that was once YouTube’s rival, is getting the axe too.

Google just sent out an email to users who have previously uploaded content to the service informing them that on April 29 2011, the site will no longer host any more videos. Users are being encouraged to download and reupload their files to YouTube. The news was first reported yesterday by CenterNetworks.

Google actually stopped allowing uploads to Google Video back in May 2009, but existing videos have played fine until now. The news will likely frustrate some people, as Google’s help page assured users that while uploads were being disabled, their content “would remain hosted by Google Video”.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time now. Google Video launched back in 2005 — you originally had to upload footage using a desktop client instead of a web form — and was selling premium content as early as January 2006. But rival site YouTube came out of nowhere to become a viral phenomenon, which prompted Google to acquire it in October 2006.

We’re adding Google Video to the deadpool, though the service still lives on (if only in logo) as Google’s search engine for video at video.google.com.

Here’s the letter that’s being sent out: