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Beeper acquired by Automattic

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#101
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, maybe the reality is more nuanced but the optics… > Matt, Automattic’s CEO, and I have known each other for years. He was an early user, supporter and investor in Beeper It certainly sounds like… Beeper was in the bin after the beeper mini fiasco, and resulting massive brand damage (brand aweness is only good if it means people actually want to use your product, not active distrust it), so the friend and earl…

This isn't how business works. A "CEO friend" isn't going to give you $125m out of the goodness of their heart so some random shareholders can save face. Worst case, the business fails, everyone happily moves on. How do you think automattic is funding this transaction? There are underwriters. And underwriters need rigorous dd to justify $1,000 let alone $125m. Even if it's an all-stock deal, a transaction like this w…

That's the script but reality is not exactly as the script says.

There are a lot friend and family members of so-and-so who are "worth" a few million dollars and that money was largely a gift. They largely spend a lot of time pretending to be "founders", "advisors" and "angels" but no, they got lucky.

Not everything is like that, but there's quite a lot of that within the billions of someone else's money's ocean that flushed SF during the last +20 years.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#102

I wonder if the plan is to merge Beeper and Texts.com. They both look verify similar in their features. Maybe texts.com for the Apple Ecosystem and Beeper for the Android one ? After all, Beeper just released their new version of the app for Android.

Yes, from the post:

> Automattic is doubling down on chat after their acquisition last year of Texts.com, a messaging app with a similar mission. Our teams and products will merge, and I will take on the role leading the team as Head of Messaging.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#103

I find it interesting that so many people want to unify all their messages. For me, I like having different apps that I can check with different frequency. I am glad that I can get my iMessages immediately but that LinkedIn messages don't get delivered to me until I open the app/website. I have literally never had an issue where I didn't get a message in time because it was sent via the wrong platform. People who nee…

And what prevents these aggregator apps from having different settings for each network?

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#105

I find it interesting that so many people want to unify all their messages. For me, I like having different apps that I can check with different frequency. I am glad that I can get my iMessages immediately but that LinkedIn messages don't get delivered to me until I open the app/website. I have literally never had an issue where I didn't get a message in time because it was sent via the wrong platform. People who nee…

I agree. I even like to silence notifications on different messaging apps depending on my focus mode on iOS/macOS.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#106
I've said this before, but Automattic's catalogue of products reads like an elephant graveyard of past internet fads.

I view an acquisition like this as a relative death knell, but only insofar as we have seen unified messaging attempted time and again only to fail due to combinations of social pressures and anticompetitive technical choices. Beeper will be absorbed into another also-ran messaging platform that won't be able to compete with whatever communities already have critical mass.

However, as far as exits go, it sort of seems like the best possible outcome for the folks at Beeper, so congrats.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#108

I find it interesting that so many people want to unify all their messages. For me, I like having different apps that I can check with different frequency. I am glad that I can get my iMessages immediately but that LinkedIn messages don't get delivered to me until I open the app/website. I have literally never had an issue where I didn't get a message in time because it was sent via the wrong platform. People who nee…

That's a perfectly valid workflow, but it would certainly be nice for people who do want a unified workflow to be able to have that option.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#109

I've said this before, but Automattic's catalogue of products reads like an elephant graveyard of past internet fads. I view an acquisition like this as a relative death knell, but only insofar as we have seen unified messaging attempted time and again only to fail due to combinations of social pressures and anticompetitive technical choices. Beeper will be absorbed into another also-ran messaging platform that won't…

> elephant graveyard of past internet fads.

This makes it sound like they acquired Evernote, which perhaps wouldn't have been the worst thing ever.

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