4 ms·

Snip.it acquired by Yahoo – site to shut down

38 points by blo 14y ago

visualcsharp 14y ago
You know, I just love reading these. The farewell tends to include the following: - Thanks for being loyal users! - We're the best at ________! - Other flowery, emotional language that hides the true reason for the acquisition: money These farewells should read more like this: Dear rubes-I-mean-users: Thank you for contributing to our Active Users metric. Without a high number we never would've been acquired by Huge Global Giant Megacorp! It is through your faithful use of our service that we, the Founders, are now rich. Oh, and that shitty service we started with faint hopes of being acquired? Yeah, we're shutting that down. But don't worry, we'll always remember you in our hearts while we swim in our newly-acquired pile of money.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jdalgetty 14y ago
why do so many sites/projects end up like that?
- senorprogrammer 14y ago
  Money. Lots and lots of money.
  - donnfelker 14y ago
    10M looks like a lot initially. Break it down after vesting and investment and its actually not much at all. Its a "nice bonus" for the founders and early employees, at best.
- herval 14y ago
  I'd say because they ultimately never generate enough revenue to pay rent? Failure is the final destination of pretty much everything that is ever built - it's a good thing some at least have the luck to be "acqui-hired" in the end... (the fact that many start projects with that objective in mind doesn't help to improve these numbers either)
- hayksaakian 14y ago
  Buyout vs failure. Last I heard they had no revenue model, so...
- djloche 14y ago
  I have to imagine it is a combination of both the attractiveness of a big payday and being able to move on to something new.
vineet 14y ago
Snip.it was a good service. One replacement is Scoop.it. And they have a revenue model, so they will hopefully not disappear too fast.
- blo 14y ago
  Scoop.it and Clipboard are good alternatives. One of these services should work on an import function
therealarmen 14y ago
I'll spare everyone the effort and post the mandatory acqui-hater comment: "Ugh, I can't believe these people would work tirelessly for two years and then leave me on the hook for a product I never paid for. Sell-outs. Don't they realize that anything besides an IPO is failure?"
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  I'm always happy for people who get aqui-hired, but at the same time the constant threat of this happening is why I don't bother using new web services that don't already have a huge critical mass, it just isn't worth the hassle to get all my data into some service and then have it go away a few months later. In any case, kudos to the Snip.it folks for handling this in probably the best possible way I've ever seen one of these services handle something like this.
- mnicole 14y ago
  I'm not going to make that complaint, but as someone that has provided a lot of feedback and posted to the site on a daily basis for the past year and a half or so, the fact that they completely shut off access to our pages with only two other suggestions to bring our links over to (the third was Chrome's Bookmarks Bar) without any warning whatsoever really put me off. Likewise, one of the services they suggested importing into was Kippt, but they had no idea Snip.it was going to be pushing their audience that way and have no way of importing their export files correctly (it imports as one big chunk of links instead of recalling my 10+ collections). Thankfully, I'm talking to one of the founders of Kippt right now to get it working right. The other similar services listed on this page don't allow for importing, which -- as these services continue to come and go -- is the most important to me.
citricsquid 14y ago
The hall of fame is a really nice idea.
blo 14y ago
Looks like the price was $10m + bonuses http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/22/yahoo-buys-snip-it-10-million/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/22/yahoo-buys-snip-it-10-milli...
i386 14y ago
What was Snip.it?
TravisLS 14y ago
Shameless plug: If you're a snip.it user looking for an alternative, my app https://annotary.com https://annotary.com is a similar replacement, which also includes highlight and annotation features. We're also bootstrapped and have a revenue model, so we're not on a countdown to taking an acquisition offer.
ruswick 14y ago
Why is it that most every time I'm informed of a compelling, well-implemented service, it is in an article stating that it's shutting down?
tirrellp 14y ago
Does anyone know how much financing they took on?

38 points by blo 14y ago

You know, I just love reading these. The farewell tends to include the following: - Thanks for being loyal users! - We're the best at ________! - Other flowery, emotional language that hides the true reason for the acquisition: money These farewells should read more like this: Dear rubes-I-mean-users: Thank you for contributing to our Active Users metric. Without a high number we never would've been acquired by Huge Global Giant Megacorp! It is through your faithful use of our service that we, the Founders, are now rich. Oh, and that shitty service we started with faint hopes of being acquired? Yeah, we're shutting that down. But don't worry, we'll always remember you in our hearts while we swim in our newly-acquired pile of money.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

jdalgetty 14y ago

why do so many sites/projects end up like that?

senorprogrammer 14y ago
Money. Lots and lots of money.
- donnfelker 14y ago
  10M looks like a lot initially. Break it down after vesting and investment and its actually not much at all. Its a "nice bonus" for the founders and early employees, at best.
herval 14y ago
I'd say because they ultimately never generate enough revenue to pay rent? Failure is the final destination of pretty much everything that is ever built - it's a good thing some at least have the luck to be "acqui-hired" in the end... (the fact that many start projects with that objective in mind doesn't help to improve these numbers either)
hayksaakian 14y ago
Buyout vs failure. Last I heard they had no revenue model, so...
djloche 14y ago
I have to imagine it is a combination of both the attractiveness of a big payday and being able to move on to something new.

vineet 14y ago

Snip.it was a good service. One replacement is Scoop.it. And they have a revenue model, so they will hopefully not disappear too fast.

blo 14y ago
Scoop.it and Clipboard are good alternatives. One of these services should work on an import function

therealarmen 14y ago

I'll spare everyone the effort and post the mandatory acqui-hater comment: "Ugh, I can't believe these people would work tirelessly for two years and then leave me on the hook for a product I never paid for. Sell-outs. Don't they realize that anything besides an IPO is failure?"

georgemcbay 14y ago
I'm always happy for people who get aqui-hired, but at the same time the constant threat of this happening is why I don't bother using new web services that don't already have a huge critical mass, it just isn't worth the hassle to get all my data into some service and then have it go away a few months later. In any case, kudos to the Snip.it folks for handling this in probably the best possible way I've ever seen one of these services handle something like this.
mnicole 14y ago
I'm not going to make that complaint, but as someone that has provided a lot of feedback and posted to the site on a daily basis for the past year and a half or so, the fact that they completely shut off access to our pages with only two other suggestions to bring our links over to (the third was Chrome's Bookmarks Bar) without any warning whatsoever really put me off. Likewise, one of the services they suggested importing into was Kippt, but they had no idea Snip.it was going to be pushing their audience that way and have no way of importing their export files correctly (it imports as one big chunk of links instead of recalling my 10+ collections). Thankfully, I'm talking to one of the founders of Kippt right now to get it working right. The other similar services listed on this page don't allow for importing, which -- as these services continue to come and go -- is the most important to me.

citricsquid 14y ago

The hall of fame is a really nice idea.

blo 14y ago

Looks like the price was $10m + bonuses http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/22/yahoo-buys-snip-it-10-million/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/22/yahoo-buys-snip-it-10-milli...

i386 14y ago

What was Snip.it?

TravisLS 14y ago

Shameless plug: If you're a snip.it user looking for an alternative, my app https://annotary.com https://annotary.com is a similar replacement, which also includes highlight and annotation features. We're also bootstrapped and have a revenue model, so we're not on a countdown to taking an acquisition offer.

ruswick 14y ago

Why is it that most every time I'm informed of a compelling, well-implemented service, it is in an article stating that it's shutting down?

tirrellp 14y ago

Does anyone know how much financing they took on?