Tag: evan williams

Wanna buy Odeo?

Post ImageHard to believe that just two years ago Odeo was a star. Heck, they even have a star in their logo! Over that period of time, they have slowly but steadily faded from the spotlight. And now even Odeo’s founders don’t want to keep it around:

It seems likely Odeo is worth more to someone else than it is to us at this point, so we’re looking for a new home for it.

We’re open to a variety of scenarios – from cash offer to an equity position. Our main concern is the ability to focus on Twitter and to see Odeo live on in some legitimate form.

All of my criticism of the service aside, I’d buy Odeo if I had the capital. The way I see it, Odeo has two main assets: a huge database of media and lots of “online presence” – that is, lots of incoming links, good search engine rankings, etc. Tons of potential.

To his credit, Evan Williams says that Obvious will continue to run Odeo if they don’t get any attractive offers. Not sure if that’s the right thing for Odeo, but at least it proves that Evan and his team still care about it.

Read: Obviously

Odeo relegated from company to product

Post ImageYesterday, Evan Williams announced that he has formed a new company called Obvious Corp. which has purchased all of the assets of Odeo Inc. from the other investors and shareholders. Some people are probably surprised at the move, but I’m not. In fact, I saw it coming back in July:

Maybe it’s time everyone stopped calling Odeo a podcasting company. I’ve been critical of Google’s apparent lack of focus and direction many times in the past, but they’ve got nothing on Odeo. I mean here’s a company with some very smart people working for them, some substantial venture capital behind them, and yet very little to show for it.

I’d guess the investors are happy to have gotten out without any losses (TechCrunch thinks the buyout price is a little more than $5 million). Odeo is no longer a company by itself. Instead, it is now simply one of perhaps many products in Obvious’ new “model for building and running web products.”

The new model that Evan describes in his post is vague, but interesting. More importantly, he seems really excited about it, and he’s right, “from excitement and bold moves, great things often happen.” I wish him the best of luck with Obvious Corp.

So what does this mean for Odeo? A post on the official blog says that they are now “even more focused on giving Odeo the attention it requires.” Frankly, it would be difficult to be less focused than they are right now, so I guess that’s a good first step. It appears it will be business as usual for Odeo, at least for the foreseeable future. It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, they change or add.

Read: evhead