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Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M

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Re: Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M

#4
Yesterday, coincidentally, there was a surprisingly silly and heated discussion in a large Facebook group about whether a person who specializes in Wix can be considered a "web developer." (https://www.facebook.com/groups/hackathonhackers/permalink/1...)

Hacker News is biased toward DIYing websites from scratch, but WYSIWYG builders like WIx are very important for those who aren't tech-savvy. DeviantArt, in a world where designers must build their own overly-elaborate portfolios with JavaScript and CSS shenanigans to stand out, serves as a good compliment.

Re: Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M

#5
post #3

DeviantArt has always been a nice community. I find it surprising that the price is so low given that they add a lot of value.

the deal will increase its revenue outlook by around $8 million

So around a 4.5x revenue multiple, which doesn't seem bad for a business that isn't growing rapidly(?)

Re: Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M

#8
From 2001-2007 I worked on helping build the community at dA. Had such an interesting and unique childhood and teenage years due to deviantART (and IRC). I owe everyone from that time a huge thank you for helping me become who I am today. It lost all it's magic (for me) when Scott and Eric Kolb left. Angelo is an absolutely amazing guy and I really really admire him but it was pretty sad to watch the community die. FYI, Chris Bolt the dude who built a lot of the tech there is INCREDIBLY and if you can figure out how to hire him, hire him - afaik he hasn't worked anywhere else in the last 17 years.

Re: Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M

#9
post #3

DeviantArt has always been a nice community. I find it surprising that the price is so low given that they add a lot of value.

Having moved in Deviant Art circles (some time ago, admittedly) I'd say one reason for the low price might be that, somewhat like Reddit, the core values of the community make it challenging to monetize.

Re: Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M

#10
One potentially alarming sentence in this article is "Wix will open up DeviantArt’s repository of art and creative community to the Wix platform, giving Wix’s users access to that work to use in their own site building."

Exactly what do they mean by that? Will it be opt-in? Will it only cover art that's already under Creative Commons? Will be it all Creative Commons? Does a Wix site count as commercial use? I can't imagine people would be very happy about their art suddenly being available for use elsewhere without their consent.

Hopefully, this is much ado about nothing, and Wix won't do anything terrible, but we've seen technology companies do stupid things before. At the very least, it would be nice if they elaborated on their plans regarding this.

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