Odeo was a directory and search destination website for
RSS-syndicated audio and video. It employed tools that enabled users to create, record, and share
podcasts with a simple
Adobe Flash-based interface.
Odeo was originally developed in 2004 by founders
Noah Glass and
Evan Williams, who were the founders of Audioblog and
Pyra Labs, respectively, and received funding from
Charles River Ventures. Subsequently, Williams bought out Charles River's interest in the company, as well as that of several other investors, and re‑formed the organization under a new company,
Obvious Corporation, which planned to develop new products, including
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
.
History
Kevin Systrom, cofounder of
Instagram
Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
, was an intern at Odeo during the summer of 2005.
On February 19, 2007, Williams wrote in his
blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
that Odeo was for sale. It was acquired soon afterwards by New York-based Sonic Mountain.
On September 14, 2007, Sonic Mountain announced that it had acquired the technology assets of FireAnt, an RSS
video-aggregation website and desktop media player, and that it planned to incorporate FireAnt's technology into Odeo. On March 18, 2008, Sonic Mountain announced that it had acquired Blogdigger, a
search engine
A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...
for blogs and RSS content, with plans to incorporate the technology into Odeo.
In June 2008, Odeo was relaunched by Sonic Mountain with a completely redesigned site and an expanded focus on search and discovery for syndicated audio and video.
In March 2009, Odeo began its transition to a fee-based service for large corporations looking to manage their video libraries. Targeting companies that needed to organize and track video usage, Odeo released its “Enterprise Video Management” platform as a
Software as a Service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...
(SaaS) solution. Their first customers included such notables as
American Express and eGA.
In August 2010, Odeo suspended its support of the consumer site odeo.com to focus its attention on enterprise video.
As of 2017, Odeo's domain has expired and has been sold.
See also
*
Video aggregator
References
External links
* {{Official, http://web.archive.org/web/20100212194957/http://www.odeo.com/
"Web 2.0 Winners and Losers"''
Wired magazine
''Wired'' is a bi-monthly American magazine that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. It is published in both print and Online magazine, online editions by Condé Nast. The magazine has been in public ...
''
Internet properties established in 2004
Podcasting companies