Odeo’s Audioblogger, which allowed users to post audio to a blogger.com blog via a telephone call, is being shut down as of November 1 and will enter the DeadPool. Existing files will continue to be hosted.
As much as I’ve questioned Odeo’s ADD business (un)focus in the past (see last paragraph here), I have to say that this is probably a smart move and not necessarily a sign of Odeo’s eventual demise. Odeo says “Given our limited resources, we have to make tough decisions about what to focus on. And we’ve come to the difficult decision that Audioblogger costs us too much in time and money to continue to run.” Frankly, that makes a lot of sense.
In general we’re seeing a lot of smart and humble moves by Odeo recently, not least of which is Founder Evan Williams’ extremely honest assessment of the company at a recent conference. In our opinion Twttr, which competes with Google owned Dodgeball for attention, should be the next to go as the company focuses on the basics.
Our previous coverage of Odeo is here.