Will online video be important to the future of the web? Google seems to think so. They just acquired online video platform Episodic. Episodic’s video service offers features like user activity analytics, live streaming and video monetization services.Episodic was already integrated with Google’s DoubleClick business so I’m guessing Google may have had a hint that Episodic was on to something big. No one is saying how much Google paid for the video service but it probably wasn’t close to the $1.65 Billion they shelled out for video sharing service YouTube back in October of 2006. Come to think of it, Google probably had a hint of the popularity YouTube was enjoying. Check out this Google Trends graph to see the meteoric rise in traffic YouTube has enjoyed compared to a site like Yahoo.
The pairing of Google and Episodic does make a lot of sense. The big question is which piece of Episodic’s business did Google want most? Beefing up YouTube’s live video streaming abilities would be nice. Improved analytics when it comes to user behavior like rewinding, fast-forwarding and pausing would be swell. Better ad placement technologies and giving video content providers the ability to charge for videos is certainly worth… “an undisclosed sum.”
Episodic competitors include Massachusetts based video platform companies Brightcove.com and video sharing service Wistia.com.
Rewatchable is a Boston Video Production service.