YouTube cofounders part ways, will spin off Mixbit

YouTube cofounders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are splitting up after many years of working closely together, reports TechCrunch.

The move comes after Hurley and Chen’s product incubator-focused company Avos Systems made some cuts and rearrangements to its employee roster back in February. At the time, our sources were saying that the Avos-produced streaming video service Mixbit was suffering the bulk of layoffs and would soon be shut down — a claim Hurley denied.

Today the pair announced that Avos would shift into a company focused mostly on Mixbit rather than trying to grow many different products within the company. As for Mixbit, the service focuses on letting you collaborate via mobile devices on short video clips that can quickly be edited and shared with friends.

Hurley will remain at Avos to lead Mixbit, but Chen will be moving on to become the latest partner at Google Ventures.

The split seems like the most logical next step based on Avos’ poor track record of services and products that failed to generate interest from consumers. For example, the company shuttered its digital magazine app Zeen back in November, and prior to that it saw dismal success with a relaunched version of iconic social bookmarking service Delicious before finally selling it off to another company.

But Mixbit might be the one service out of Avos that could eventually become a hit — especially because streaming video is an area Hurley knows well. And now he and the rest of the Avos team have plenty of time to focus on making it better.