Google has acquired Atherton, CA based startup Omnisio, the companies are announcing this afternoon. Omnisio, which is a Y Combinator company, first demo’d to us in early March 2008, and it launched later that month. The price is not being disclosed, but we hear the deal is all cash and is in the $15 million range.
The company was founded by three Australians (Ryan Junee, Julian Frumar and Simon Ratner). The service lets users annotate videos, mash various clips up, and synchronize Slideshare presentations to videos (great for conference presentations). Omnisio users can extract sections of clips they find on the web (currently only those on YouTube, Google Video, or Blip.tv). They can then take those clips and stitch them together to form new, embeddable compilations.
This is yet another liquidity event for Y Combinator, which invests small amounts of capital in very early stage companies, usually at the idea stage. Reddit was acquired in late 2006, TextPayMe was bought by Amazon in 2007, and Auctomatic and Anywhere.FM were snapped up earlier this year.
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YouTube definitely needs some more interaction options, because the comments are so horrific its not even funny. This sounds like it will help the community bubble up some creative users.
I don’t know whether it’s so much YouTube’s fault that the majority of comments on YouTube are anti social.
Is it worth investing in YouTube.. it doesn’t need to be more spiced up from what I think… http://blabtech.blogspot.com
I somewhat agree with techdude, in the sense that from a user’s perspective it’s ‘o.k.’, what they should invest in is in ways of monetizing that content and if they figure out they can’t, go for other content (not a compilation or remix of cats on roller skates)
If implemented correctly, this could definitely help invideo search, relevancy of invideo advertising, it’ll help bring the best videos to more viewers, it’ll increase the number of comments dramatically, it’ll create communities around the content. Clever filtering only would show the best invideo comments. Clever invideo ratings would generate shorter versions of the video showing different types of relevant highlights to people who don’t have time to watch the whole video.
Bravo!
Congrats to team Omnisio!
$15 million for that? Wow… Google’s insane.
They paid $20M for Writely, and it took less time to develop, and is arguably far less useful. Google got a bargain at $15M. The real villain here is likely Y Combinator. If Omniscio was traditionally financed and not racing to a Google exit pushed by seed investors, they could have spent another year building an audience and sold for 10x on this.
Y Combinator made out like bandits - $1.5M in 4 months on a $20k investment… How do I get in on that action.
Amazing. 4 months post-launch and Google buys it.
hey google, buy my site, 5 million in cash would do ;).
Me too, me too!
Wouldn’t adding encryption to Gmail be a nice feature?
Plus, it tackles the privacy issue.
G. http://www.cgeep.com
gmail has encryption, just add the s at the end of http: https://gmail.com
Philos,
That’s not end-to-end email encryption. HTTPS only encrypts the connection between your browser and the Google web server.
The content and files sent in your emails can still be “evedropped” by Google, between and on SMTP relays, etc.
G.
Omnisio built in a relatively short period of time a powerful set of markup tools for streaming video that YouTube was sorely lacking. This was a great buy and a bargain! Congrats to Ryan, Jules and the team.
Check out a full review of Omnisio to see what they do. Congrats!
http://www.killerstartups.com/.....e-your-own
Any word from Google on a schedule for pushing out
implementation?
Thanks
If the past is any indicator I’d say 2010 is a pretty safe bet
Another Acquisition from Google after digg fail .
looks as if small acquisitions are going to gain some steam in the upcoming quarters. Yesterday, Ribbitt with zero revenues get acquired for $105M and today another company with donut in revenues gets taken out for $15M.
It’s wonderful to be an American tech entreprenuer.
@Guillaume
You’ve got a cool site. How are you different from Hush?
Also, you may want to add some meat around the bone and tell us who is on your team. Without that info not many people will take you serious.
Thanks for the compliment and the tip.
Hush is a webmail. We used to do that and are now producing a plug in for MS Outlook and a standalone app for Windows. We also have a webstart version which works without an account (beta).
G.
What gets me is that it’s just a bunch of flash that you can do in a month and a half. google has a retarded m&a team.
Congrats to the team, my first encounter was Omnisio was watching the StartupSchool videos and having the slides synced was amazing. Made such a difference.
The idea of masses of YouTube users creating “new embeddable compilations” is scary. (if you think the comments are bad…)
A big kudos to Ryan and the crew. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.
This is an Excellent move by Google. Consider the traffic going to slide.com and slideshare.net going to youtube now. Not every one can create original videos but there are many who create powerpoints, give presentations get their video recorded and what next………the next is omnisio……..
Well done guys!
Another Australian SV Success story.
Aussie Aussie Aussie - ooi ooi ooi
Still waiting for subtitle tool. Some videos are in other languages that too many people can´t understand.
try our site, we have sub-title feature too
plymedia has some cool subtitle tools - subply (www.subply.com)
Congrats to the guys. But I do wonder how difficult is this really? 15 mil sounds a bit much to what seems like easy to develop tech.
Google needs to let users download videos from YouTube onto their Ipods and PSPs…like they’ve done on Google Video.
–
The Newsbreak Times is an entirely teenager-run newspaper! http://www.newsbreaktimes.com
That’s a good idea, if not for the copyright problems
Glad you chose to mashup with SlideShare.
“$15 million for that? Wow… Google’s insane.”
It’s server side ffmpeg. You enter a video URL, the php uses CURL to grab the video then splices it with other videos via ffmpeg on the server side.
castfire has the same type of technology. The video timestamps are logged in the db then presented with a flash GUI of that as a time line on the video player.
If anybody wants something similar I could reproduce this technology for about 10k of development time at $50 an hour, but I would charge you about 250k, at least. Because that’s reality.
I guess YC paid less.
Another addictive thing to play with in addition to blogging. Per my recent post on inefficent blogging (and various apps) - http://www.savingtoinvest.com/.....oyees.html - this is just going to make things worse! Great app by the way as I have used it a little.
$15M is not much money for Google, about how much it makes in 1 hour.
i am shock almost anytime google buys any company
you would think they could build such technology in house with all their ms and phd’s stanford grads
i agree. all those self professed genius engineers under there belt. google is not into integration which is the future of the internet. if they did they would get rid of all the mumbo jumbo they spit out from cyberspace and clean house. 98% of surfers will not make it past page 3 of any google search quierie. time for them to clean house and stop spitting out garbage. i demand better and i am not alone.
People get mad when the big guys copy the startups.
People get mad when the big guys buy the startups.
Can’t win.
You must be shocked a lot!
Google buys something like one company a week just for their widgets.
I like watching this talk from DHH about “making money” on Omnisio where he is like “..what does it take for Google to open it’s purse and buy you…”
http://omnisio.com/startupscho.....-school-08
Google’s not insane, if you think they bought it for the technology your are probably being naive. What’s 15 million to kill a potential competitor, you don’t know what Google may be upto.
You should have done it 5 months ago and today instead of the Omnisio folks it would be you checking out a Tesla.
I love the DHH talk that is on Omnisio, specifically the line where he is like “..what will it take to get Google to open it’s purse and buy you…”
http://omnisio.com/startupscho.....-school-08
dude am I blocked?
@valley dropout,
Deals aren’t done by programmers or people who understand technology. They’re just not. People who do these deals are like comparable people trying to coordinate colors in a fashionable outfit.
If deals were up to programmers they would never happen because every single programmer would say another company’s tech is worthless because they could simply do it themselves. That’s why patents are important.
Its a nice stuff …. i like it … i also have a blog … may be you people like it
http://compedia4us.blogspot.com
share with your friends
wow 15millions, good pay day..buy my site too
http://www.bloggerunited.com (social aggregation)
Hey Google, why don’t you add the only entirely-teenager-run newspaper to Google News? http://www.newsbreaktimes.com
Umm, cause no one gives a shit about your crappy paper, at a guess.
Google buys Omnisio: Wise or Waste[VOTE]? http://snurl.com/37vxl [www_thriveorfail_com]
For some reason, I like the way that this deal sounds vs the google/digg deal.
pretty sure google only does cash deals. YouTube was the last stock deal they did, and they said it would be the last.
Google owners the internet !
Please wavice andtch dhh’s speech on not being a sellout broadcast on Omnisio. However, this is a beautiful service and I’m nonetheless happy for it’s creators.
Can someone explain the difference between cash-only and stock deals?
Does it mean these guys got 15M+ in cash (minus Graham’s take, etc) with no vesting period, just like that?
Also, can someone remind me why I’m working for a big company?
Security. Stability.
In essence, chicken shit
Cash-only,
I did a cash only deal for PHPMail in 2006. They wire the money to the lawyer’s bank account. Then the lawyer takes their fee and wires the rest to your company account. Then you have to pay all the people involved, creditors, investors, and taxes. If there’s anything left you can re-invest it or buy a sports car.
I was offered a stock deal for something else but refused. In a private stock deal you are sent the stock certificate with the # of shares that you dealt for via UPS or Fedex. Then you are mailed dividends.
You are such a douche. Can’t you just use the Reply feature. It’s not like you have spammed your redirect links here a thousand times, you should be familiar by now.
There, is that better?
Thank YOU for being a friend.
Haha…I’m pretty sure that your experience of doing a cash deal for a crappy PHP script in 2006 (if it even happened) is pretty much worthless as a source of information on how a $15m deal with Google would work in 2008.
I suspect your “cash deal” was you getting sued by someone for violating some IP and you sending them some cash to make it go away. That would seem to fit with most of what I’ve seen from you, which is shitty me-too ideas that rip off someone else’s ideas.
Please, for the love of God, go work for some insurance company and leave the Internet in peace.
I think that the value of omnisio is not limited to helping you create content (http://gheller.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/omnisio/) but also by mashing up content it helps you digest the huge amount of video content out there. My thoughts on that are here:
http://gheller.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/omnisio/
I think that the value of omnisio is not limited to helping you create content ) but also by mashing up content it helps you digest the huge amount of video content out there. My thoughts on that are here:
http://gheller.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/omnisio/
Omnisio may add fun to the YouTube site, but will it add any value.
I truly believe that most of Omnisio’s applications in the presentation area, will be integrated into Google’s Documents Services.
wow TC comment spam is out of control - as for Omnisio, it was a very highly regarded startup from that YC batch, congrats on the quick sell to the team. Will be interesting to see what happens to the tech at google.
whats going one with GrandCentral, i think google bought it and forgot it. hope they make major improvements and relaunch soon
Solid acquisition. Will be interesting to see how they integrate into youtube…. Check out New LiVe Search engine here… http://www.gothamtechminute.blogspot.com
It will be awesome to see the outcome of this. Google truly is dominating and will most likely forever dominate at this point?
No one dominates forever. Just like MS, Google will be upstaged by someone smaller, younger, and more nimble. Except that the cycle is shorter now, so it’ll happen in 10 or 15 years instead of 25 or 30.
Yeah GOOG. Buy this too: http://www.iglueit.com
…you never know your luck in a big city! how about a etza now!
hmmm etza yum yum
when google pays a big sum for a startup, it is either because the startup contains tech/community that can’t easily be replicated (ala Youtube), or…. like in this case, they also want what comes with the website. the 3 dudes behind it.
they are paying for talent, ease of integration of this tech into their existing system, and well highly creative, enthusiastic employees.
plus this format provides perfect advertisement delivery platform.
the 15mil investment will easily translate into a much greater return.
Anyone wanna buy my site - http://www.planetmy.com?