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"For now, Cover will remain available in the Play Store while we focus our attention on our work at Twitter. If that changes down the road, we’ll provide anothe

by GuiA 13y ago

"For now, Cover will remain available in the Play Store while we focus our attention on our work at Twitter. If that changes down the road, we’ll provide another update here." tl;dr: Cover will die a slow, unmaintained death while the former Cover employees work on completely unrelated Twitter projects. Oh well.

mcescalante 13y ago
Likely, and maybe they're going to work on something like "Twitter Home," a new lock screen & experience for the Twitter app only on Android. If done correctly (and not invasively) I can possibly see people using it. Then they'll announce the Cover app is no longer available.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
Hopefully it leads to improvements in the Twitter for Android app. Compared with the iOS version it's abysmal (IMO).
unreal37 13y ago
Or maybe they will enhance the functionality to make Twitter superior from the lock screen.
smackfu 13y ago
Better or worse than just killing off the product?
- jypepin 13y ago
  worse than having the team continue to work on a good product that people love. I think it's the point of the author of the comment here.
  - acjohnson55 13y ago
    Maybe they weren't making any money. If that's the case, the product would probably die eventually anyway, like Everpix, for instance. I guess that's the issue with these bittersweet acquihires. Tough to tell what the alternative is.
untog 13y ago
Would be great to see code open sourced in situations such as this. Alas.
- danielsiders 13y ago
  Is anyone aware of a standard promise or "contract" startups can sign with their users that says if we close or get bought and the product is shut down we promise we'll open source it within X days under Y license? This happens so often it would be great to have a standard and clear expectations.
  - Argorak 13y ago
    It would also add a lot of legal complexities to the buying process. For example, what happens when "Cover" is discontinued, but it got bought for the underlying technology? It needs to be open sourced because of that.
ggreer 13y ago
This is yet another example of why all startups should have a responsible sunset pledge[1]. The pledge should contain something along the lines of, "If we shut down, we will make it possible to run an instance of our product." That means open-sourcing server code, writing some minimal docs, and probably building some data export APIs. I had the idea before starting Floobits (YC S13 yadda yadda), and of course, we've made a pledge: https://floobits.com/pledge https://floobits.com/pledge This helps the company as well as customers. People are more likely to adopt your product when they know you'll give them the source code if your company dies. It's helped in subtle ways that I didn't predict. For example: If I ever think of taking shortcuts or building embarrassingly bad software, I remember that the public will likely see this code one day. If you run a company, consider making a responsible sunset pledge. If you use a SaaS tool, consider asking that company to make one. 1. http://geoff.greer.fm/2012/09/19/a-responsible-product-sunset-pledge/ http://geoff.greer.fm/2012/09/19/a-responsible-product-sunse...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- fancy_betta 13y ago
  Cover didn't really have customers - their app was "beta" and was free. I don't know that they had any servers or anything is stored online, you don't create an account to use the app. The type of pledge you're advocating wouldn't really make a difference for this app, but I can see where it could be useful in other cases.
- nl 13y ago
  This is yet another example of why all startups should have a responsible sunset pledge Why, exactly? This probably won't be a popular view on HN, but I think a lot of people complain about companies shutting things down for the sake of complaining. Cover was a free, beta application with a very limited number of users. There was no personal data saved by it and no future plans announced. For those users Cover will continue to work today like it did yesterday. And yet the top voted comment is complaining about it being shutdown. Pfft! In general, customers want a supported product (eg, the endless complaints about every single startup bought by a larger company, even when they completely open source their product). In most cases a pledge like this puts extra restrictions on what a startup can do. I'm not saying screw over your customers if you get bought, but making a pledge is completely different to building some kind of data export facility if it ends up being needed. Why take on challenges that you don't need? In some cases (typically enterprise focused) some kind of business continuity plan is absolutely appropriate. In many consumer-focused app start ups? Not so much.

by GuiA 13y ago

mcescalante 13y ago

Likely, and maybe they're going to work on something like "Twitter Home," a new lock screen & experience for the Twitter app only on Android. If done correctly (and not invasively) I can possibly see people using it. Then they'll announce the Cover app is no longer available.

k-mcgrady 13y ago

Hopefully it leads to improvements in the Twitter for Android app. Compared with the iOS version it's abysmal (IMO).

unreal37 13y ago

Or maybe they will enhance the functionality to make Twitter superior from the lock screen.

smackfu 13y ago

Better or worse than just killing off the product?

jypepin 13y ago
worse than having the team continue to work on a good product that people love. I think it's the point of the author of the comment here.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  Maybe they weren't making any money. If that's the case, the product would probably die eventually anyway, like Everpix, for instance. I guess that's the issue with these bittersweet acquihires. Tough to tell what the alternative is.

untog 13y ago

Would be great to see code open sourced in situations such as this. Alas.

danielsiders 13y ago
Is anyone aware of a standard promise or "contract" startups can sign with their users that says if we close or get bought and the product is shut down we promise we'll open source it within X days under Y license? This happens so often it would be great to have a standard and clear expectations.
- Argorak 13y ago
  It would also add a lot of legal complexities to the buying process. For example, what happens when "Cover" is discontinued, but it got bought for the underlying technology? It needs to be open sourced because of that.

ggreer 13y ago

This is yet another example of why all startups should have a responsible sunset pledge[1]. The pledge should contain something along the lines of, "If we shut down, we will make it possible to run an instance of our product." That means open-sourcing server code, writing some minimal docs, and probably building some data export APIs. I had the idea before starting Floobits (YC S13 yadda yadda), and of course, we've made a pledge: https://floobits.com/pledge https://floobits.com/pledge This helps the company as well as customers. People are more likely to adopt your product when they know you'll give them the source code if your company dies. It's helped in subtle ways that I didn't predict. For example: If I ever think of taking shortcuts or building embarrassingly bad software, I remember that the public will likely see this code one day. If you run a company, consider making a responsible sunset pledge. If you use a SaaS tool, consider asking that company to make one. 1. http://geoff.greer.fm/2012/09/19/a-responsible-product-sunset-pledge/ http://geoff.greer.fm/2012/09/19/a-responsible-product-sunse...

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
fancy_betta 13y ago
Cover didn't really have customers - their app was "beta" and was free. I don't know that they had any servers or anything is stored online, you don't create an account to use the app. The type of pledge you're advocating wouldn't really make a difference for this app, but I can see where it could be useful in other cases.
nl 13y ago
This is yet another example of why all startups should have a responsible sunset pledge Why, exactly? This probably won't be a popular view on HN, but I think a lot of people complain about companies shutting things down for the sake of complaining. Cover was a free, beta application with a very limited number of users. There was no personal data saved by it and no future plans announced. For those users Cover will continue to work today like it did yesterday. And yet the top voted comment is complaining about it being shutdown. Pfft! In general, customers want a supported product (eg, the endless complaints about every single startup bought by a larger company, even when they completely open source their product). In most cases a pledge like this puts extra restrictions on what a startup can do. I'm not saying screw over your customers if you get bought, but making a pledge is completely different to building some kind of data export facility if it ends up being needed. Why take on challenges that you don't need? In some cases (typically enterprise focused) some kind of business continuity plan is absolutely appropriate. In many consumer-focused app start ups? Not so much.