4 ms·

Man, I'm gutted. I use Xmarks every day to sync from my work & windows machines (Firefox) to my MacBook (Safari) and thus to my iPhone / iPad. I'd have happily

by ajg1977 16y ago

Man, I'm gutted. I use Xmarks every day to sync from my work & windows machines (Firefox) to my MacBook (Safari) and thus to my iPhone / iPad. I'd have happily paid $5 a month or so to use Xmarks and I imagine I'm not alone. It's really unfortunate that they won't even try the freemium, or (shock!) even the outright pay to play approach. I'm sure with two million users there would have been enough paying customers to create a profitable business.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
buro9 16y ago
I honestly didn't know xmarks existed, I probably missed it because I used to be more of an Opera user before Chrome with only a fleeting interest in Firefox inbetween. Firefox I moved to because of Weave, and I only fully shifted to Chrome when the sync became full-featured. Xmarks may not be able to compete within a single browser, but the killer play is syncing across them. Having just read the feature list I would happily pay $5 per month for the secure password syncing across browsers. The bookmarks have a little value to me, but the password syncing has pretty significant value.
- twistedanimator 16y ago
  If all you need is secure password syncing, you should check out LastPass (http://lastpass.com/ http://lastpass.com/).
mtr 16y ago
I have a feeling that Xmarks is getting more press by saying that they will shut things down in 3 months versus them making an annoucement that they're shifting to a fremium model. While it could backfire, the additional press coverage could be leveraged to a freemium model if they do it before everyone abandons ship.
fady 16y ago
you're not alone.. I would pay as well
chadgeidel 16y ago
With the hope that folks at Xmarks are reading this - I, too would pay for this service. I'm not sure I would pay $5 per month, but I don't think that, say $20 per year is unreasonable. (I prefer to pay by year - that's usually where the best discounts are).
japherwocky 16y ago
I cannot comprehend how they aren't even going to TRY to charge for ANYTHING. How the fuck do they think this whole cash flow thing works? 2 million users, and they don't even put out a god damn paypal donation widget? Show ads? Freemium anything? Charge something outrageous, lose 90% of your 2 million users, and you'll still have a significant monthly income. This is just the stupidest news I've heard in a while. Zero respect for these guys, they clearly don't have even a shred of business sense.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Zero respect for the people behind the service, really? I have zero respect for your comment but I stop well short of saying I have zero respect for you. Things are probably not that simple. They have investors. It may not be a case of "Hey, we can make a business that pays for three guys to eat." Perhaps their investors need to see a certain minimum return or else the investors would rather close up shop. Maybe they have a better buysiness idea and it's better to close this one and put 100% of their energy into the new idea. Have you heard of justin.tv? IIRC, a large number of people on reddit were criticizing Justin and his partners for selling their previous startup on eBay. They got some money and started again with a blank piece of paper. I am not saying that you're wrong about what to do given the information you have. I am saying that (1) It is difficult to be absolutely certain that they are making the worst possible business decision in this case given how little we know, and (2) Even if they are making the worst possible business decision, how does this extend to having zero respect for the complete human beings who laugh, love, play, and built something many people value? p.s. The company is for sale. If you have an opinion of how it ought to be run, there's no better way to make your case than to buy it for a fire sale price and run it. In all honesty, I would be absolutely delighted if you were to make a go of it. That would be a very inspiring story.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    p.p.s. I was exaggerating when I said "zero respect for your comment." I was just trying to make a point about the difference between criticizing someone's point and criticizing them personally. But now that I think about it, I was a little rude. I apologize.

by ajg1977 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

buro9 16y ago

I honestly didn't know xmarks existed, I probably missed it because I used to be more of an Opera user before Chrome with only a fleeting interest in Firefox inbetween. Firefox I moved to because of Weave, and I only fully shifted to Chrome when the sync became full-featured. Xmarks may not be able to compete within a single browser, but the killer play is syncing across them. Having just read the feature list I would happily pay $5 per month for the secure password syncing across browsers. The bookmarks have a little value to me, but the password syncing has pretty significant value.

twistedanimator 16y ago
If all you need is secure password syncing, you should check out LastPass (http://lastpass.com/ http://lastpass.com/).

mtr 16y ago

I have a feeling that Xmarks is getting more press by saying that they will shut things down in 3 months versus them making an annoucement that they're shifting to a fremium model. While it could backfire, the additional press coverage could be leveraged to a freemium model if they do it before everyone abandons ship.

fady 16y ago

you're not alone.. I would pay as well

chadgeidel 16y ago

With the hope that folks at Xmarks are reading this - I, too would pay for this service. I'm not sure I would pay $5 per month, but I don't think that, say $20 per year is unreasonable. (I prefer to pay by year - that's usually where the best discounts are).

japherwocky 16y ago

I cannot comprehend how they aren't even going to TRY to charge for ANYTHING. How the fuck do they think this whole cash flow thing works? 2 million users, and they don't even put out a god damn paypal donation widget? Show ads? Freemium anything? Charge something outrageous, lose 90% of your 2 million users, and you'll still have a significant monthly income. This is just the stupidest news I've heard in a while. Zero respect for these guys, they clearly don't have even a shred of business sense.

raganwald 16y ago
Zero respect for the people behind the service, really? I have zero respect for your comment but I stop well short of saying I have zero respect for you. Things are probably not that simple. They have investors. It may not be a case of "Hey, we can make a business that pays for three guys to eat." Perhaps their investors need to see a certain minimum return or else the investors would rather close up shop. Maybe they have a better buysiness idea and it's better to close this one and put 100% of their energy into the new idea. Have you heard of justin.tv? IIRC, a large number of people on reddit were criticizing Justin and his partners for selling their previous startup on eBay. They got some money and started again with a blank piece of paper. I am not saying that you're wrong about what to do given the information you have. I am saying that (1) It is difficult to be absolutely certain that they are making the worst possible business decision in this case given how little we know, and (2) Even if they are making the worst possible business decision, how does this extend to having zero respect for the complete human beings who laugh, love, play, and built something many people value? p.s. The company is for sale. If you have an opinion of how it ought to be run, there's no better way to make your case than to buy it for a fire sale price and run it. In all honesty, I would be absolutely delighted if you were to make a go of it. That would be a very inspiring story.
- raganwald 16y ago
  p.p.s. I was exaggerating when I said "zero respect for your comment." I was just trying to make a point about the difference between criticizing someone's point and criticizing them personally. But now that I think about it, I was a little rude. I apologize.