Odeo (formerly known as Sonic Mountain) has acquired FireAnt – a podcast and Vodcast directory. TechCrunch reports the acquisition to be worth $400,000.
Acquiring Technology – Not Users
By purchasing FireAnt, Odeo has gained the FireAnt desktop media player for Windows and Mac, as well as FireAnt’s database of feeds and metadata.
However, in terms of users FireAnt is thin on the ground with a very low Alexa rank of 245,000 which I estimate to be anywhere between 5000 – 20,000 visitors a month.
Compare that to its main competitor Miro which has an Alexa rank of 38,000 (roughly about the same popularity as TiVo.com) which will have monthly visitors most likely in the mid 6 figure range (if not higher).
This also comes at a time when another competitor to FireAnt, Instant Media, appears to have shut down due to a lack of popularity.
This aquisition appears to be be rescuing FireAnt from a deadly fate.
Odeo – The Best Place for FireAnt
The lack of users of FireAnt will now be overshadowed bu the popularity of Odeo, an extremely popular podcast directory mainly concentrating on audio rather than video.
Odeo is well placed to give Vodcasts more traction by adding the FireAnt technology to its audio podcast mix. I think the aquisition will work great for both companies.
And they get to report to this guy:
The CEO of Odeo/Sonic Mountain is his old boss Dick Moore at Sivault. He just bankrupted their former company Sivault to the tune of $47m in debt.
OBTW, he has a few skeletons in his closet:
http://tinyurl.com/322f7y
Don’t hold your breath for anything exciting to come from the likes of kinberg at fireant. He flat out lied to me and my college friends who spent months working on our comedy video channel for fireant, saying that a new version of the player was coming, that it would connect directly to portable devices and that our channel would be put into the fireant directory. All lies.
Don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner but I checked out kinberg’s personal blog and here’s a guy who doesn’t even bother to update his blog for months at a time and not a hint of video creation to be found. I wonder if ODEO did their homework before hiring this guy on!
I’m pretty sick and tired of these blabber-mouth, self flattering tech CEOs who think they know what film makers want, when they themselves don’t produce nada. Granted my friends and I are just starting out in film making and comedy TV, but at least we try to produce something every day.