As someone put it succinctly in the comments on the Verge:
"Sparrowed!"
(I am imagining it being said in the Strongbad/Teen Girl Squad "Arrow'd!!" voice)
Cover is joining Twitter
51–60 of 75 posts
Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#52If Cover gets pulled, I hope some people take a break from making Flappy clones and 2048 clones to make a Cover clone.
Cover is (was?) a phenomenal addition to my Android experience.
Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better or worse than just killing off the product?
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.
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.
Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would be great to see code open sourced in situations such as this. Alas.
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.
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.
Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#55"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.
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
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-sunse...
Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#56"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.
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…
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Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#57If Cover gets pulled, I hope some people take a break from making Flappy clones and 2048 clones to make a Cover clone. Cover is (was?) a phenomenal addition to my Android experience.
Hi, I'm curious to know how it augmented your Android experience?
Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#58Damn. This was one of the few apps that made me prefer Android over iOS. It's highly likely it's now going to die (the only thing Twitter gains from this is the team, the app has no relevance to them). It also probably means my one major annoyance with the app won't be fixed. It changes to work settings based on location but I work from home. Was hoping they would add a setting to set it to work between certain hours…
Hi, I'm curious to know what features Cover had that you loved?
Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#59Re: Cover is joining Twitter
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
An acquihire is not a success it's a failure, and instead of being excited, I'm sure the feeling is more like being resigned to at least having a place to go after closing the doors. It's sad too because their product is ace.
You have no idea how they feel about their acquisition and to project your negativity on their situation is a mean thing to do. For all you know they could be popping champagne bottles and eating chicken wings and you're being a debbie downer. Edit: http://i.imgur.com/ewXHcbp.jpg
I don't know how they feel but if they're popping champaign bottles after abandoning their product and their users then I don't give a shit how they feel.
I do understand the situation better than most however because I've been there in a startup when the end is there and you're faced with acquisition to hire talent or closing the doors. You face it every day as time runs out and your runway shrinks. You face it a thousand times until you finally make a decision you were avoiding for a long time. It's not fun. So if these guys are happy it's probably because a weight has been lifted of their chest, not because they succeeded.