Apple acquires video discovery startup Matcha.tv
Apple has acquired a video discovery and recommendation service called Matcha.tv. VentureBeat was the first to report on the deal, which sees Apple buying the startup for between US$1 to 1.5 million. After news of the acquisition broke, Apple released the following statement to AllThingsD and confirmed the deal:
"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
The acquisition makes sense for Apple, as the company offers hundreds of thousands of TV shows and movies through its iTunes store. And though the availability of myriad videos is a boon for users, video discoverability has become a hot topic in the online video industry in the last few years. The more videos that are available, the harder they are to discover as there are more to sift through. Anything that helps with discovery is very useful to users.
Matcha.tv itself was an iOS app that provided overviews of everything that was available to watch on cable TV providers, video streaming services like Netflix and in digital video stores like iTunes. Its technology would naturally be a good fit in Apple's current offerings or any Apple television software that we may see in the future.
