In a move believed to give a boost to its advertising efforts, Google has disclosed that its YouTube unit has acquired Directr, a video-editing startup. Directr is a mobile app that helps small businesses create marketing videos. No financial terms have been disclosed.
The Directr app is available on the iOS platform, enabling small businesses to shoot, edit and upload short videos to the Internet. All Directr employees will now join Google’s YouTube video-ads team. Currently, Directr doesn’t have a lite or free version of the app, and customers need to pay a fee for any the variants of the app. However, Google has promised that all versions will be free once the start-up joins YouTube.
On its blog, Directr has put up a creative video disclosing it has been acquired. The team writes, “For now, everything you love about Directr is staying the same and we’ll continue to focus on helping businesses create great video quickly and easily. One immediate bonus: Directr will soon be all free, all the time. Thanks, YouTube!”
Directr is available for personal as well as business use. Though the personal edition was free but the app charged 99 cents to download a finished video. The business version was priced at $250-$500 a year, depending on features a user needs.
The search giant already has Google My Business suite of tools to help small businesses appear in Google search and Google Maps. With the Directr, it further adds tools encouraging small businesses to run more advertising across its sites.
