14 DAY TRIAL // There's no stopping Google's acquisition bonanza and the Mountain View giant has notched another company to its belt, online video platform Episodic. The startup had only launched its product a few months behind, but Google was impressed with what it saw and acquired the company with employees joining the Google team. The acquisition was announced by Episodic and Google has confirmed it.
"We are thrilled to announce that Episodic has been acquired by Google. The entire Episodic team is extremely excited about this new partnership and what it means for our customers and the evolution of online video. The Episodic team will join Google and continue its work to bring a great video experience to the Web, mobile phones and IPTV devices," Noam Lovinsky and Matias Cudich, Episodic's cofounders, announced on the company's blog.
"From our earliest discussions with Google, it was clear that the teams shared this belief and together we obviously see huge potential in online video. Our product visions were also complementary and together we will continue to produce innovative video technology for our customers and their viewers," the company explained.
Episodic offers a white-label platform for publishing and measuring videos. The company also offers monetization options with an ad platform that works with most major ad networks. The video player is optimized for mobile platforms as well, just for the iPhone for now, but options for other popular platforms like Android and Blackberry are in the works. Episodic also offers quite a complete analytics suite.
It's unclear why Google acquired the company. Google isn't saying and Episodic has only provided a very vague response: "Episodic and Google share a common vision for video on the Web." What is known is that Episodic's employees will now join Google, likely working on YouTube in some way. Episodic will also continue to offer its services and says there will be no change for existing users.