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AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

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Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#191

Post by insane_dreamer »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #43
jacobgkau wrote: post #32

People usually mention Evernote when Bending Spoons is brought up, but I also know them as purchasing Meetup (after it was already sort of struggling) and, more recently, entering an agreement to purchase Vimeo (of which I'm a paid user). AOL was already a husk, and has been arguably since they got rid of the triangle logo. It was already owned by a private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, as a subsidiary of Ya…

It sounds like Bending Spoons is where old tech products go to die? I guess that's private equity for you.

They bought Komoot recently.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#192

Post by vasco »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #75
jrochkind1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like Bending Spoons is where old tech products go to die? I guess that's private equity for you.

Understandably people don't like Bending Spoons - they fired the whole dev team on Evernote, and the price has gone way up too.. but as a user I have to say Evernote the product has gotten better and better since the acquisition. They've improved performance and have great new features every month.

> Understandably people don't like Bending Spoons

I have no reason to believe they are nice guys, but I also don't have the opposite. But it's interesting to me by default you think they are in the wrong.

Supposedly the people that hired all those employees didn't know what they were doing and mismanaged the company all the way to needing to sell. Why are the bad guys the ones that actually are willing to do the hard work of making the product profitable so that it can keep existing?

The fault should be with the previous owners that drove it to the ground leaving no more options, not bending spoons, imo. If it was well managed it wouldn't need to be sold.

- VC funny money creating illusion of jobs for a bit = I sleep

- Turning it into a real money engine that can sustain the product for years = real shit

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#193

Post by silisili »

sharkjacobs wrote: post #90

> That "incredibly loyal user base," as he called it, could be better served with greater investments in AOL's product and user experience, he noted. I think there's something kind of astute here, which is that anyone who is still using AOL products at this point is someone who is very resistant to changing "email and web content properties" providers, and is likely willing to passively tolerate additional enshittifi…

Yeah, for another 10 years or so tops.

On the other hand, they are the easiest demographic to scam out of money, which seems fitting for a company like AOL.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#194

Post by hobofan »

muglug wrote: post #181
BryantD wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vimeo is the really interesting case for me, because they are the white label hosting providers for a large number of niche streaming services -- Criterion Channel comes to mind, for example. Evernote failing is sad but lower on indirect effects. Vimeo going down would leave a noticeable hole in the streaming world.

Vimeo won’t “go down” anytime soon. It might get worse/more expensive, but it’s not in imminent danger. And it’s also not the only white-label provider around, either.

For customer facing streaming sites they also don't seem to be the clear default choice. I think dropout.tv is one of the few "secondary streaming services" to still be with Vimeo (and with the strong overlap in their networks I'm sure they got a good deal), while many other ones like Nebula evaluated them but went with other providers.

It looks like the majority of their business is in employee training portals for megacorps.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#195

Post by jen729w »

acomjean wrote: post #114
jacobgkau wrote: post #32

People usually mention Evernote when Bending Spoons is brought up, but I also know them as purchasing Meetup (after it was already sort of struggling) and, more recently, entering an agreement to purchase Vimeo (of which I'm a paid user). AOL was already a husk, and has been arguably since they got rid of the triangle logo. It was already owned by a private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, as a subsidiary of Ya…

Meetup.. the promise of meetup was the organizers pay a fee so the members don’t have too. My partner organized one a decade ago. I’m still a member of a couple but now they’re really going after group members with ads and upsells. It still works but has become kind of icky. Bending spoons, the name just sends up red flags as parlor trickery.

> Bending spoons, the name just sends up red flags as parlor trickery.

'Spoon bender' was a deep insult in my circle when we were ~18. In honour of the ur-bender, Uri.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#196

Post by mtgentry »

sentientslug wrote: post #150
mtgentry wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Evernote user, Bending Spoons has been iterating fast over the past couple years to improve the product. It’s much better than it used to be.

What the value prop of continuing to use Evernote versus other newer solutions like Notion? Interested to hear from someone still using the product

Notion is more than I need. 99% of the time I just need to write something down for later.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#197

Post by Mistletoe »

BryantD wrote: post #136
jacobgkau wrote: post #32

People usually mention Evernote when Bending Spoons is brought up, but I also know them as purchasing Meetup (after it was already sort of struggling) and, more recently, entering an agreement to purchase Vimeo (of which I'm a paid user). AOL was already a husk, and has been arguably since they got rid of the triangle logo. It was already owned by a private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, as a subsidiary of Ya…

Vimeo is the really interesting case for me, because they are the white label hosting providers for a large number of niche streaming services -- Criterion Channel comes to mind, for example. Evernote failing is sad but lower on indirect effects. Vimeo going down would leave a noticeable hole in the streaming world.

Is this why Criterion streaming quality is so poor? It’s completely unacceptable for a service that is supposed to pride itself on loving movies and preserving them. Sometimes the scene will be dark and I will descend into some sort of weird 8 bit pixel world.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#198

Post by darknavi »

BryantD wrote: post #136
jacobgkau wrote: post #32

People usually mention Evernote when Bending Spoons is brought up, but I also know them as purchasing Meetup (after it was already sort of struggling) and, more recently, entering an agreement to purchase Vimeo (of which I'm a paid user). AOL was already a husk, and has been arguably since they got rid of the triangle logo. It was already owned by a private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, as a subsidiary of Ya…

Vimeo is the really interesting case for me, because they are the white label hosting providers for a large number of niche streaming services -- Criterion Channel comes to mind, for example. Evernote failing is sad but lower on indirect effects. Vimeo going down would leave a noticeable hole in the streaming world.

Dropout as well I think.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#199

Post by jhbadger »

7tythr33 wrote: post #149
godzillabrennus wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've kept the product alive but I don't know that it's terribly improved... I've been a paid user since 2008. Switching would be painful for me given how familiar I am with it but I came close this last year when it stopped letting me stay logged in on multiple Mac computers at the same time...

I was with Evernote since 07, and found it a doddle to ditch. Export the lot, bring into Apple Notes or Bear. Or a combination of the two. Sorted.

Sounds like you've already moved on from it, but if people are looking for a pretty seamless Evernote replacement, Joplin (open source) is pretty much an exact replica of Evernote and can import Evernote data.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#200

Post by zimpenfish »

jhbadger wrote: post #199
7tythr33 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with Evernote since 07, and found it a doddle to ditch. Export the lot, bring into Apple Notes or Bear. Or a combination of the two. Sorted.

Sounds like you've already moved on from it, but if people are looking for a pretty seamless Evernote replacement, Joplin (open source) is pretty much an exact replica of Evernote and can import Evernote data.

The annoyance I have when considering a move away from Evernote is that none of the recommended alternatives have IFTTT support.

(Although having said that, I do drop most of my notes into iOS/macOS Drafts these days which also doesn't have IFTTT support. But I could probably lash something up with webhooks and SQLite if absolutely necessary.)

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