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TwitterGoogle is certainly keeping its promise to buy one small company each month. It’s fifth acquisition for the year is video service Episodic, a San Francisco-based start-up founded by Noam Lovinsky and Matias Cudich. Since January 2010, Google has bought Microsoft Word online component DocVerse, photo-editing site Picnik, email app maker reMail, and social search company Aardvark.
Episodic describes itself as a “comprehensive platform for broadcasting live and on-demand video to the web or any web-enabled device.” It is an online video hosting service and publishing suite, and features the capability to publish live streams and on-demand content. Users also have control over advertisements and ad breaks in their videos, as well as an in-depth analytics tool that gives them real-time information on viewers’ experiences. Episodic also allows users to make money off of their video channels by inserting advertisements or charging viewers for content (via credit card). These options are available for both live streams and on-demand video. Not only this, Episodic is also optimized for viewing on mobile devices, including the iPhone.
Terms of the deal were not released. The company said new sign-ups of its service are being suspended during the transition but that existing customers won’t be affected.
Google Buys Episodic
It is presumably being drafted to help out with the Google-owned Youtube video service. According to Tech Crunch, the service will, in fact, be “folded into Youtube” and the Episodic staff will join the Youtube offices next week. YouTube and Episodic overlap in some areas, as both help publishers and marketers serve video to their audiences from Web-connected devices. Both use analytics to give publishers an idea of how much or how little their content is being consumed on the platforms. And both certainly are learning how to make money from pairing video content with advertising.
A Google rep said that “online video should be engaging, entertaining, informative and effective” and apparently, that is what the team at Episodic has.
He went on to add that both Google and Episodic place good value in creating an experience for viewers and delivering a powerful and flexible platform for advertisers, publishers and marketers, alike. There have not been any details mentioned about the terms and conditions of the deal from either company at this point.
In a statement on the Episodic blog, they wrote that “The Episodic team will join Google and continue its work to bring a great video experience to the Web, mobile phones and IPTV devices”.
This acquisition shows that Google is quite serious about expanding its Web video purview, which makes good business sense. Google recently purchased On2 Technologies, as well, which is a video compression codec maker, to shrink packets of video data.
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