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Beeper acquired by Automattic

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#221

Post by xinayder »

LorenDB wrote: post #182
Grustaf wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't, they genuinely believe in Beeper, and the long term plan was rather to become the leading chat app in their own right, with users communicating over the Beeper protocol.

A bit of pedanticism here - it's not the Beeper protocol, it's the Matrix protocol. Beeper is built on top of Matrix (using bridges that you could host on your own server if you wanted).

Except there are a lot of Beeper-only Matrix spec implementations that aren't available for everyone else. In other words, no other Matrix homeserver or client can benefit from the features Beeper has.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#223

Post by artdigital »

jamiequint wrote: post #120
drkleiner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will likely dismantle Texts and focus on Beeper as it received more investment while taking the good of Texts. They will probably introduce Texts monetization model to Beeper though. One app for Apple and another for Android kinda defeats the purpose of "all in one platform", wouldn't it?

I hope not, have you used both apps? Texts is much more stable and easy to use than Beeper in my experience.

Not my experience. I’ve tried (and am still trying) texts and not once I was able to have it just work. Constantly messages not showing up, accounts not loading, or something else missing. I’ve been submitting heaps of feedback to the Texts team.

It looks great but feels very alpha/beta to me, and I decided to not renew my subscription

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#224

Post by kevstev »

theogravity wrote: post #200
kevstev wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea has existed and been implemented for a very long time- Pidgin was the first client I can remember that would try to bridge across various chat networks. You likely are on 14 different chat "networks" already- you might not think of them as chat networks, but as apps with chat functionality. Just real quick off the top of my head I can name a bunch: FB Instagram Twitter WhatsApp Telegram Signal Gchat/whateve…

Trillian was my first client. It looks like it still exists and now runs on a subscription model: https://trillian.im/ Also looks like it no longer connects to multiple networks, but uses their own now.

Ha thanks for jogging my memory. I knew pidgin wasn't the first or even the primary one I used but I couldn't recall what else I had used.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#225

Post by rw_grim »

erohead wrote: post #65
gwerbret wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exciting day for Beeper! Congratulations on your successful exit, but is it actually an exciting day for Beeper? Your product has been assimilated into something of a behemoth, whose goals (in spite of the text of your announcement) aren't necessarily those of a free and open internet through open communication protocols. Do you foresee a five-year timeline in which anti-monopoly legislation forces an opening up of…

If you've followed Beeper, you know that roughly 50% of our product is already open source ( https://github.com/beeper ). You can run your own Matrix server and use our bridges, or self-host the bridges and use Beeper clients ( https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager ). For all intents and purposes, Beeper _is_ the rejuvenated and very open Pidgin. Automattic is a fantastic home for us. We needed a home (or new inve…

FWIW, Pidgin is still very much alive, we even had a release in February... Also not sure what "very open Pidgin" means as we're 100% GPLv2 but whatever.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#226

Post by rw_grim »

pkulak wrote: post #81
basisword wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all of these services fully open up there will be 100% free and/or open source clients available and Beeper won't be able to compete. Before all of these walled gardens we have tools like Pidgin and if they open up those will be viable again.

The bridges are already free and open source and I don't see my friends and family racing to get them running on their laptops. Pidgin is great, but something needs to be running on a server or you don't get notifications. And without notifications, what's the point of a messaging app?

I wrote more on this topic here https://dev.to/grim/why-is-there-no-mobile-version-of-pidgin...

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#228

Post by Rebelgecko »

jamesmunns wrote: post #2

I really like Beeper, and congrats to them for getting acquired, but my first reaction is "aw damn how long until the parts I love about Beeper get incredible journey'd away". The new android app is really good, the desktop app has always been a step up from other Element apps I've used (it is a distant fork, these days), I don't have iMessage, but it works great with Matrix and Signal and WhatsApp a ton of other "ra…

FWIW, Automatic has bought a few projects I use (PocketCasts, Simplenote) and seem to have been pretty good stewards. For Simplenote they actually reduced the monetization (although a decade after the acquisition they've started remonetizing in a lowkey way which is hopefully sustainable)

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#229

Post by Rebelgecko »

btseytlin wrote: post #160
k8svet wrote: post #159

The Verge reports: > Since then, Beeper has rolled out some security upgrades that change the way the app handles security and prevent Beeper itself from seeing unencrypted messages from Signal, WhatsApp, and other encrypted apps. Screenshots of Beeper’s desktop and mobile apps. How?

Probably on device encryption before anything is sent through their servers

There's an "experimental" option in the app to run the server locally. I don't use signal so not sure if it works as well

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#230

Post by chiefalchemist »

xmprt wrote: post #180
alalani1 wrote: post #158

Automattic basically consolidated the messaging aggregator market for $175M - I don't have any data but given they had 40 FTE between the two companies, I would guess not more than $10M in revenue across the two. Anyone understand the business rationale for wanting to own this market?

No matter what, as long as we continue to communicate with each other, messaging will never die. Individual messaging platforms will come and go but the idea of instant messaging has existed for about as long as the internet. $175M might be a steal if Beeper gets more mass market appeal.

Yes. Messaging will never die. Given that, why has it been so difficult for so many to get a toe-hold - and be sustainable - for so long?

I agree with the sentiment of your comment. However, I'm not sure it answers: what's the justification of this purchase? What does the buyer know that others have not?

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