Odeo acquired by SonicMountain
May 10th, 2007 | By James Lewin | Category: Audio Podcasting, Making Money with Podcasts, Podcasting Services 
Podcast aggregation site Odeo today announced that its assets have been acquired by SonicMountain, a New York based company focused in the digital media hosting and search marketplace.
Odeo was among the first commercial podcasting sites, launched in July 2005, and is designed to make it easy to listen, download and subscribe to podcasts. The site had struggled to meet the goals of its founder, Evan Williams, and was put up for sale in February.
While Odeo has been one of the most successful podcast aggregation & communit sites, the site has faced monolithic competition from Apple’s podcast offerings and has also struggled from fact that it didn’t eat it’s own dog food. Williams attention recently has been focused on another startup, Twitter.
“A critical aspect of the transaction was the commitment by SonicMountain to retain the integrity and spirit of the Odeo community,‚Äù says Evan Williams, CEO of Obvious Corporation. ‚ÄúDuring the selection and due-diligence process it was important that the buyer be committed to Odeo‚Äôs growth and improvement.”
SonicMountain intends to incorporate enhancements to the Odeo community, including improvements in content organization, search, crawl, plus podcast hosting of both audio and video.
“We are extremely grateful that Evan Williams will be acting in an advisory capacity during and post transition,‚Äù says Jack Roken, CEO of SonicMountain. ‚ÄúEvan‚Äôs proven success with Blogger, Odeo and now the rapid rise of Twitter are examples of the creativity and influence Evan has on the social aspects of the web. We are eager to build on the solid foundation he has created.”
More discussion at TechCrunch,  Podcastellano (Spanish)
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Who is SonicMountain?
Looks like their address is a PO Box in a Suburban Long Island UPS Store.
http://communications-utilities-in-wantagh-ny.yellowpagesltd.com/
Ups Store the
3280 Sunrise Hwy Wantagh, NY 11793
516 – 783 – 6800
Category: Packaging Services & Supplies
What’s up with that?
Here’s a link to their about us page:
http://www.sonicmountain.com/aboutus.php
But how much did it sell for?
I know for a fact that over the weekend they are moving to a “swanky” office on 5th Avenue in New York. I guess they were having mail sent to Wantagh in the interim.
[…] Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee reports that SonicMountain, the company that recently acquired the once-hyped podcasting startup Odeo, has purchased FireAnt, a stagnating video podcasting startup. […]