YouTube acquires video creation app Directr, makes it free

Himanshu Arora

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In an effort to bolster its video-advertising efforts and reach more small-business customers, Google has acquired Directr, a startup that helps create beautiful mobile videos. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Directr currently offers an iOS app for small businesses looking to create and edit short marketing videos, which can then be uploaded to Facebook, YouTube and more. The app offers a bunch of potential storyboards for different types of videos and gives users examples of how their videos could or should look like.

"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", the company said in a blog post announcing the news, adding that the team will join YouTube's video ads division.

The app was available for both personal and business use. While the former focused on travel videos, family holidays, and other videos that you might want to share with your family and friends, the latter focused on creating testimonials, product demos, and more.

The personal version of the app was free but required you to shell out 99 cents to download the finished version of a video, while the business version was paid and was available for $250-$500 a year, depending upon the features it offered. Both versions will now be available for free.

The Directr deal is yet another example of Google's ongoing efforts to bolster its offerings to small businesses, a segment that invests around $140 billion a year in local advertising.

Back in May, the search giant acquired Appetas, a two-person startup that helped restaurants build slick-looking websites. Earlier this week, it also acquired Emu, a mobile messaging app that comes with a built-in virtual personal assistant.

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