14 ms·

Twitpic Couldn’t Find an Acquirer, Will Shut Down After All on Oct 25th

55 points by LukeB_UK 12y ago

LukeB_UK 12y ago
Previously: Twitpic is shutting down (2014-09-04): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8269553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8269553 "We've been acquired and Twitpic will live on" (2014-09-18): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337867
photofriendly 12y ago
Stating "we've been acquired" in their past tweet, and now stating "We were almost certain we had found a new home for Twitpic (hence our previous tweet), but agreeable terms could not be met" are two very different things. I don't like the dishonesty from their past tweet.
- bitJericho 12y ago
  Tell them to go take a hike... oh wait...
- abat 12y ago
  Acquisitions are complex and take a long time to really close. Most of the time you see articles about a company being sold, the deal isn't actually done yet. WhatsApp agreed to terms in February, but the deal didn't actually close until a week ago. Was it a lie to say that WhatsApp had sold to Facebook before October? That said, I have no idea what the case is here.
bitJericho 12y ago
The more this happens the more I agree with Jason Scott that it should be illegal to allow data to be arbitrarily destroyed like this.
- tbrownaw 12y ago
  Users can now export their photos until the 25th, at which point they’ll vanish into the void. Since you want this to be illegal, what do you propose instead? Some country's taxpayers pay to keep the servers up maybe? And really why should it be illegal, doesn't the government stick it's nose into far too much already? Do you mean illegal illegal, or breach-of-contract "illegal" (in which case, what contract)?
  - yuhong 12y ago
    Consider sending a dump to Internet Archive.
    - general_failure 12y ago
      This assumes all data is public
      - sp332 12y ago
        Well, all the TwitPic data is public.
        general_failure 12y ago
        Sure but most services that shutdown have some sort of personal data or the other. You cannot dump them on the internet archive.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    It would be interesting to see a form of "data insurance". Company pays insurance premiums by stored TB, and if they go bust, the insurance company ensures the data is kept hosted (be it themselves or by preparing the data and donating resources to the Internet Archive)
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
mhartl 12y ago
Twitpic's unfortunate fate is a reminder that your company hasn't been acquired until the money is in the bank. As pg put it, "Deals fall through" [1]: Startup founders tend to be optimistic. This can work well in technology, at least some of the time, but it's the wrong way to approach raising money. Better to assume investors will always let you down. Acquirers too, while we're at it. At YC one of our secondary mantras is "Deals fall through." No matter what deal you have going on, assume it will fall through. The predictive power of this simple rule is amazing. [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html
- pbreit 12y ago
  This one is a little harder to swallow since the alternative is shutting down the service with no cash in hand. Surely there was a deal on the table to keep the service running?
  - jmathai 12y ago
    The terms still have to be compelling to be acquired. Acquisition isn't a panacea by any means. The details can make shutting down a company more attractive then going through with the acquisition. A simple example is an acquisition that doesn't sound terribly exciting, pays out money in earn outs and puts those earn outs 4 years into the future. Sometimes it's better to just get on with your life...
    - pbreit 12y ago
      If the monthly burn wasn't too bad, I'd consider taking it on.
IvyMike 12y ago
From Jason Scott's twitter, I take it the ArchiveTeam efforts to back up all the data will resume. On this note, you can help: you can download the ArchiveTeam Warrior virtual machine, which is both easy to run and helpful to the ArchiveTeam. Your computer will help grab more of the missing data before it disappears forever. ArchiveTeam projects tend to pop up and disappear quickly, much like the websites they are archiving, so you can even just leave a warrior running and when something happens, it will be at the ready. (My Warrior is currently working on the GameMaker sandbox project, for example.) You can also run the Warrior scripts directly, without a VM, in some setups. I glossed over some of the details; there is a lot more info at the link below. I encourage you to try running a Warrior yourself. http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Warrior http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Warrior
timdierks 12y ago
I wonder how much the twitpic domain is worth? That's a lot of dangling link juice. It would be great for them to get a copy of everything to the Internet Archive.
coherentpony 12y ago
Proof that forcing your users to give the rights to their content to your business does not necessarily mean your business is a good one.
segmondy 12y ago
I'll acquire them for $10. Oh wait, they do probably say no, because their exit strategy was to get acquired by twitter or someone else for millions upon millions. Any money is better than no more, and the market is willing to pay what it's currently worth, they should sell it to the highest bidder and be done with it.
Animats 12y ago
Twitpic probably could have won a trademark lawsuit against Twitter. They'd registered "TWITPIC" as a trademark, and the USPTO had approved it, then published it for opposition. Twitter opposed it, disagreeing with the USPTO. So there was a case pending before the Trademark Trials and Appeals Board. At the time "TWITPIC" was first used, Twitter did not have an image product. The USPTO saw no conflict with "TWITTER" as a trademark. The examiner did see a conflict with "TWITVID", so Twitpic and Twitvid cut a deal and reported that to the USPTO, allowing the trademark registration to proceed. It's quite possible that Twitpic would have prevailed in court. It won't go to court, though; Twitpic abandoned their application on October 8, 2014. "TWITVID", meanwhile, has their trademark registered, and continues to operate.
kretor 12y ago
Imgur and others handle to make a profit with ads. Why can't Twitcpic?
ChuckMcM 12y ago
This is a curious statement "but agreeable terms could not be met." Since the alternate choice was "death" one wonders who preferred that over some form of acquisition. I suppose it is always possible that the acquirer was steadfast in demanding certain team members be part of the deal and could not come to an arrangement with them, but that is the only thing that I can come up with that might prevent at least something from going through.
- jmathai 12y ago
  I think there's lots of things that can go wrong in an acquisition which fall under "agreeable terms could not be met". It's hard to tell if a letter of intent was drafted or signed which would clearly lay out the terms. If not then I'd say the acquisition announcement was made prematurely. If the terms hadn't been laid out then there's a whole slew of things that could cause it to go south on either side.

55 points by LukeB_UK 12y ago

Previously: Twitpic is shutting down (2014-09-04): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8269553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8269553 "We've been acquired and Twitpic will live on" (2014-09-18): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337867

photofriendly 12y ago

Stating "we've been acquired" in their past tweet, and now stating "We were almost certain we had found a new home for Twitpic (hence our previous tweet), but agreeable terms could not be met" are two very different things. I don't like the dishonesty from their past tweet.

bitJericho 12y ago
Tell them to go take a hike... oh wait...
abat 12y ago
Acquisitions are complex and take a long time to really close. Most of the time you see articles about a company being sold, the deal isn't actually done yet. WhatsApp agreed to terms in February, but the deal didn't actually close until a week ago. Was it a lie to say that WhatsApp had sold to Facebook before October? That said, I have no idea what the case is here.

bitJericho 12y ago

The more this happens the more I agree with Jason Scott that it should be illegal to allow data to be arbitrarily destroyed like this.

tbrownaw 12y ago
Users can now export their photos until the 25th, at which point they’ll vanish into the void. Since you want this to be illegal, what do you propose instead? Some country's taxpayers pay to keep the servers up maybe? And really why should it be illegal, doesn't the government stick it's nose into far too much already? Do you mean illegal illegal, or breach-of-contract "illegal" (in which case, what contract)?
- yuhong 12y ago
  Consider sending a dump to Internet Archive.
  - general_failure 12y ago
    This assumes all data is public
    - sp332 12y ago
      Well, all the TwitPic data is public.
      - general_failure 12y ago
        Sure but most services that shutdown have some sort of personal data or the other. You cannot dump them on the internet archive.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  It would be interesting to see a form of "data insurance". Company pays insurance premiums by stored TB, and if they go bust, the insurance company ensures the data is kept hosted (be it themselves or by preparing the data and donating resources to the Internet Archive)
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago

mhartl 12y ago

Twitpic's unfortunate fate is a reminder that your company hasn't been acquired until the money is in the bank. As pg put it, "Deals fall through" [1]: Startup founders tend to be optimistic. This can work well in technology, at least some of the time, but it's the wrong way to approach raising money. Better to assume investors will always let you down. Acquirers too, while we're at it. At YC one of our secondary mantras is "Deals fall through." No matter what deal you have going on, assume it will fall through. The predictive power of this simple rule is amazing. [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html

pbreit 12y ago
This one is a little harder to swallow since the alternative is shutting down the service with no cash in hand. Surely there was a deal on the table to keep the service running?
- jmathai 12y ago
  The terms still have to be compelling to be acquired. Acquisition isn't a panacea by any means. The details can make shutting down a company more attractive then going through with the acquisition. A simple example is an acquisition that doesn't sound terribly exciting, pays out money in earn outs and puts those earn outs 4 years into the future. Sometimes it's better to just get on with your life...
  - pbreit 12y ago
    If the monthly burn wasn't too bad, I'd consider taking it on.

IvyMike 12y ago

From Jason Scott's twitter, I take it the ArchiveTeam efforts to back up all the data will resume. On this note, you can help: you can download the ArchiveTeam Warrior virtual machine, which is both easy to run and helpful to the ArchiveTeam. Your computer will help grab more of the missing data before it disappears forever. ArchiveTeam projects tend to pop up and disappear quickly, much like the websites they are archiving, so you can even just leave a warrior running and when something happens, it will be at the ready. (My Warrior is currently working on the GameMaker sandbox project, for example.) You can also run the Warrior scripts directly, without a VM, in some setups. I glossed over some of the details; there is a lot more info at the link below. I encourage you to try running a Warrior yourself. http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Warrior http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Warrior

timdierks 12y ago

I wonder how much the twitpic domain is worth? That's a lot of dangling link juice. It would be great for them to get a copy of everything to the Internet Archive.

coherentpony 12y ago

Proof that forcing your users to give the rights to their content to your business does not necessarily mean your business is a good one.

segmondy 12y ago

I'll acquire them for $10. Oh wait, they do probably say no, because their exit strategy was to get acquired by twitter or someone else for millions upon millions. Any money is better than no more, and the market is willing to pay what it's currently worth, they should sell it to the highest bidder and be done with it.

Animats 12y ago

Twitpic probably could have won a trademark lawsuit against Twitter. They'd registered "TWITPIC" as a trademark, and the USPTO had approved it, then published it for opposition. Twitter opposed it, disagreeing with the USPTO. So there was a case pending before the Trademark Trials and Appeals Board. At the time "TWITPIC" was first used, Twitter did not have an image product. The USPTO saw no conflict with "TWITTER" as a trademark. The examiner did see a conflict with "TWITVID", so Twitpic and Twitvid cut a deal and reported that to the USPTO, allowing the trademark registration to proceed. It's quite possible that Twitpic would have prevailed in court. It won't go to court, though; Twitpic abandoned their application on October 8, 2014. "TWITVID", meanwhile, has their trademark registered, and continues to operate.

kretor 12y ago

Imgur and others handle to make a profit with ads. Why can't Twitcpic?

ChuckMcM 12y ago

This is a curious statement "but agreeable terms could not be met." Since the alternate choice was "death" one wonders who preferred that over some form of acquisition. I suppose it is always possible that the acquirer was steadfast in demanding certain team members be part of the deal and could not come to an arrangement with them, but that is the only thing that I can come up with that might prevent at least something from going through.

jmathai 12y ago
I think there's lots of things that can go wrong in an acquisition which fall under "agreeable terms could not be met". It's hard to tell if a letter of intent was drafted or signed which would clearly lay out the terms. If not then I'd say the acquisition announcement was made prematurely. If the terms hadn't been laid out then there's a whole slew of things that could cause it to go south on either side.