Google acquires start-up to bolster YouTube editing
Omnisio's technology allows users to mix online videos and add comments
Computerworld - Google Inc. on Wednesday acquired four-month-old Omnisio Inc. and said it plans to fold the start-up company's technology for mixing online videos and adding comments to videos into its YouTube video site. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The co-founders of Omnisio — Ryan Junee, Julian Frumar and Simon Ratner — have "tremendous expertise" in advanced video tools, which will be useful in efforts to find ways to improve the user experience of YouTube, said YouTube officials in a blog post announcing the acquisition.
"We're big fans of anything that lets people interact with online video and gives the YouTube community the chance to express themselves in creative ways," YouTube said in the post. "We believe we've only scratched the surface in terms of what's possible with online video, so stay tuned for other tools and features that will let you do even more with your videos."
While an online video editor is a good idea, YouTube has been unsuccessful in previous efforts to add the technology to the site, noted Philipp Lenssen, a blogger at Google Blogoscoped.
"Their YouTube Remixer was slow and somewhat feature-weak when it was released, and it was later removed," he noted. "Omnisio's editor was a working start but I'm sure there's still much more to improve in this space."
Frederic Lardinois, a blogger at ReadWriteWeb, added that Omnisio's product doesn't appear to be so advanced that Google couldn't have built it in-house.
"Chances are that Google was mostly interested in the talent at Omnisio — something they hint at in the announcement of the acquisition that mostly focuses on how great the expertise of the Omnisio team is and less on the actual technology behind Omnisio," he noted.
And because Omnisio already allows users to make their own videos by assembling clips from YouTube, Google Video and Blip.tv, the acquisition probably seemed like a good fit to Google, Lardinois added.
"It remains to be seen if using Blip.tv videos will remain an option after this acquisition if Google ever brings Omnisio back in some form," he noted. "Given the level of maturity of most YouTube commenters, it remains to be seen how useful this function is going to be when/if it gets integrated in YouTube. At least with the current commenting system, you can still stay away from the spam [and] flamewars."
Read more about Web 2.0 and Web Apps in Computerworld's Web 2.0 and Web Apps Topic Center.



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Why Business Ethernet Services?
- Everybody's heard the cliché, "the network is your business." But that's not going to help you choose the best wide area networking service...
- Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
- As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
- Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
- Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
- Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
- Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
- Streamline Compliance and Increase ROI
- Streamline, simplify, and automate compliance related activities; especially those that impact multiple business units. This white paper from NetIQ, outlines solutions that will... All Web 2.0 and Web Apps White Papers
- Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
- Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
- Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
- Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
- Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence
- Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®... All Web 2.0 and Web Apps Webcasts