Odeo

Odeo holds a significant place in tech history, primarily for what it became rather than what it was. Founded in 2005 by Noah Glass and Evan Williams, Odeo entered the market as a platform to simplify the creation, discovery, and sharing of podcasts. Williams, already known for co-founding Blogger and selling it to Google, partnered with Glass, a developer who had created a tool for audio blogging from a cell phone. The company secured funding from investors including Charles River Ventures and attracted a talented team that included engineers Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone. The platform offered a suite of web-based tools, such as a podcast directory for discovery, a browser-based recording studio, and a synchronizing tool for MP3 players, which aimed to make podcasting accessible without expensive software.

The company's trajectory was drastically altered just weeks after its launch in June 2005. Apple announced the integration of a podcasting platform directly into iTunes, which was bundled with its dominant iPod MP3 players. This move effectively rendered Odeo's core business model obsolete overnight, as it could not compete with the seamless integration and massive user base of Apple's ecosystem. Faced with this existential threat, the leadership encouraged the team to brainstorm new ideas. During an internal hackathon, Jack Dorsey proposed a concept for a real-time, SMS-based status updating service. This side project, initially called "Twttr," was championed internally by Noah Glass, who is credited with coining the name.

As the new micro-blogging concept gained traction internally, Odeo's original podcasting service languished. Recognizing the podcasting platform was no longer viable, Williams made the decision in 2006 to buy back Odeo from its investors, restructuring the company under the name Obvious Corporation to focus entirely on the promising new service, Twitter. This period was marked by internal strife, culminating in Williams firing co-founder Noah Glass. Odeo was sold in February 2007 to a company named Sonic Mountain for a reported sum of over $1 million. Sonic Mountain attempted to revive the service, adding new features and later pivoting Odeo into a fee-based enterprise video management platform in 2009. However, these efforts were unsuccessful, and Odeo ultimately shut down completely, with its domain expiring in 2017.

Keywords: Odeo, podcasting platform, Evan Williams, Noah Glass, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Twitter pivot, Obvious Corporation, Sonic Mountain, podcast directory, web-based recording, podcast history, tech pivot, startup failure, Apple iTunes, Charles River Ventures, status update service, Twttr, digital media, audio broadcasting