I received an email today from Tokbox, announcing the following:

Dear Brian,

When given the choice of having the good or bad news first, we always opt for bad news. So here goes…As of April 5^th, 2011 the TokBox video chat and video conferencing service will no longer be available. We promise it’s not you, it’s us.

You can continue to enjoy your premium services until April 5th, 2011 for free. At the time of your next monthly renewal, you will not be charged.

The good news is that the TokBox team will be focusing 110% of our energy on the TokBox Platform and our new API, OpenTok, to bring group video conversations to sites & applications you’re already using.

To learn more, please read our blog post. And as always, send a note to feedback@tokbox.com if you have any questions.

—- The TokBox Team

So, what does this mean for VirtualDS? Well, obviously we’re going to have to find some other way to hold our video chats. It is possible their API will offer some sort of solution, or perhaps we’ll use one of the other services like tinychat (although in my experience these are even more troublesome). Anyway, We have until April to figure it out.

Don’t forget to add the upcoming chats to your calendar  (Sharon Hill, Matt Lowry, and an encore appearance of Ben Radford!), and stay tuned for further developments.