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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

#241

Post by philipwhiuk »

xp84 wrote: post #98
pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In November 2022, Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Evernote.[19] The acquisition was concluded in January 2023.[20] In July 2023, Evernote laid off all of its existing staff and announced it would relocate to Europe to be closer to Bending Spoons' headquarters.[21] Damn.

This is exactly how European companies do when they acquire American ones, especially "Tech" companies that have well-paid technical staff. You can hire in Eastern Europe for far less, and can hire in Western Europe for still a significant bargain compared to what engineers and associated people make in California - plus, dealing with an 8+ hour time difference is brutal compared to keeping it all in Europe. A friend…

It's pretty wild to describe Italy as 'Eastern Europe'

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

#242

Post by rewsiffer »

mystraline wrote: post #228
walletdrainer wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For streaming movies and TV at reasonable prices? No, but you can DIY with Plex and get Blu-ray quality

Dont do Plex! Closed source that leaks what you upload to Plex. And they're owned by big media - so only time they start suing users for files they know they have. Instead, check out FLOSS server Jellyfin!

That’s alarming. Do you have any sources where I can learn more about this?

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

#243

Post by mikeryan »

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.

Bending Spoons also bought Brightcove so they actually own two of the white label streaming providers.

Would not be surprised to see the two merged into a single service.

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

#244

Post by Aaron2222 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #240
strombofulous wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email was often used as a primary key on older websites

Yes, and it's possible to change that e-mail. The only place I've encountered which doesn't is Alibaba.

ChatGPT is another.

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

#245

Post by alirezaxdehghan »

lormayna wrote: post #69
ramon156 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still have no idea why they have so many job applications, they don't actually hire.

AFAIK (I am Italian) they have a very long and difficult hiring process, comparable to a FAANG.

No one gets in I guess. The coding challenges never end.

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

#246

Post by ajross »

End of an era. (Well, OK, the era ended long ago, this is just the long-delayed tombstone I guess). Those of us coming out of the pre-boom internet always sneered, but those floppies they'd pack into every magazine were the gateway for the rest of the world.

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

#247

Post by jayofdoom »

darknavi wrote: post #198
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.

Dropout as well I think.

Yep. Vimeo is the tech infrastructure from the original collegehumor, and Dropout still uses it.

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

#248

Post by no_wizard »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #187
no_wizard wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m honestly surprised that Vimeo never jived their niche. They could have been a great alternative to YouTube, in that they could have been the ownership platform for content creators. They just never seemed particularly focused long enough to make it happen

Vimeo never seemed to figure out what they wanted to be. Did they want to be a white label video hosting provider? Did they want to be a social media network? Did they want to be prestige TV for the online age? Did they want to be IFC (indie movies) for the internet? If they had picked one track and stuck to it they would have done a lot better but they ended up at the intersection of all those disparate spaces which…

IMO, they would have been best as a white label provider with good editing tools.

Granted, I'm armchair CEO postulating about it, but that always seemed like a good niche that would cover the rest of the subsets in a variety of ways, especially if they had embedded a monetization program via ads like YouTube as a sub-brand for creators. A possible 1-2 punch to sustainable revenue.

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

#249

Post by heystefan »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #241
xp84 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how European companies do when they acquire American ones, especially "Tech" companies that have well-paid technical staff. You can hire in Eastern Europe for far less, and can hire in Western Europe for still a significant bargain compared to what engineers and associated people make in California - plus, dealing with an 8+ hour time difference is brutal compared to keeping it all in Europe. A friend…

It's pretty wild to describe Italy as 'Eastern Europe'

They didn't describe Italy as Eastern Europe, they said you can hire in Eastern Europe for far less. Eg. you can do that from Italy and keep people in the same timezone and relatively close by.

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

#250

Post by justin66 »

ajross wrote: post #246

End of an era. (Well, OK, the era ended long ago, this is just the long-delayed tombstone I guess). Those of us coming out of the pre-boom internet always sneered, but those floppies they'd pack into every magazine were the gateway for the rest of the world.

Even though we all complained (perhaps not in so many words) about the eternal September and the damage done by opening things up to a larger number of people, the early AOLers were paradigms of intellectual curiosity and urbanity compared to what came later.
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