Google Strengthens Video Portfolio With Episodic Acquisition
Episodic confirmed the move in a Friday blog post. The acquisition -- Google's fifth of 2010 -- is poised to boost the company as it expands and enhances its YouTube property.
"At Episodic, we have always felt that these are the very early days of online video and that there is far more growth to be had," wrote Episodic representatives in a Friday blog post. "To put it in perspective, our industry is barely 15 years old. We've just received our learner's permit, we still can't drive without adult supervision and we're certainly not old enough to buy a drink...legally."
According to the blog post, Episodic's executives felt Google "shared this belief" and the two companies' product visions were "complementary."
Episodic was founded by Noam Lovinsky and Matias Cudich in 2008. The service is a hosting and publishing platform through which users can manage video content, publish live streams and on-demand packages, regulate advertising and use analytics to determine viewer experience.
Users can charge viewers and advertisers to watch or appear during their content, and the service is also available for video content on mobile devices.
Google did not respond to a ChannelWeb request for comment. Financial terms of the Episodic deal were not disclosed by either Google or Episodic.
Although Episodic didn't confirm how its team will fit into Google's own, TechCrunch reported that the Episodic staff will become part of the YouTube team and the Episodic service, itself, will be "folded into YouTube."
After a relatively quiet 2009 on the acquisitions front, Google has been on a buying spree in the new year, making good -- and then some -- on a pledge made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt in September 2009 to acquire new companies at a pace of one small company a month.
In 2010 alone, Google has moved to acquire the "social search" company Aardvark, the e-mail applications specialist reMail, the photo editing service Picnik, and DocVerse, which makes tools to enable Microsoft Office applications to work like Google Docs.
For more on Google's acquisitions over the years, check out this roundup of 12 Key Google Acquisitions from the near-60 Google has made since 2001.