Microsoft has reportedly acquired VideoSurf, an Internet video search web site that was founded back in 2006 by four Israeli-born citizens but is based in San Mateo, California. The report, which was first announced by an Israeli web site, has yet to be confirmed by either Microsoft or VideoSurf. That same report said that Microsoft bought VideoSurf for "tens of millions of dollars." TechCrunch claims that the number is around $70 million. Earlier this year VideoSurf received about $28 million in funding from a number of investors including former US Vice President Al Gore.
VideoSurf"s web site reportedly has over 20 million unique visitors a month. The site itself uses its own technology in order for its users to quickly find videos from a wide variety of sources including Hulu, CNN, TMZ, Metacafe, Fancast, Comedy Central, Dailymotion and others. Oddly, VideoSurf doesn"t show YouTube, owned by Google, as one of the video sources that it uses for its searches.
Microsoft has likely acquired VideoSurf in an effort to improve its own Internet search services, specifically its Bing division. Bing is working hard to take market share in the Internet search business from Google and having an advanced video search engine would help Microsoft in those efforts.
[Update] The acquisition has been confirmed by Microsoft and they will use the technology to help bring content to their Xbox platform.