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Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

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Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#31

Post by majani »

I don't want to speak for the founders, but looking at the factors surrounding this acquisition(little innovation, spam tactics, low price, unrelated acquirer), it is clear that Socialcam was a build-to-flip company. And as a build-to-flip company, it was a fantastically executed one at that.

Some people (pg included[1]) build companys just so they can sell them off one day. Many around here get worked up by that reality, but the cold, hard truth is that not everyone is in this game to change the world forever. Deal with it.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3178029

(edit: reference)

Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#32

Post by ianedwards »

Wonderful.

Headline should read: Spammy app gets rewarded for heavy-handed, spammy tactics.

"Nice guys" or not, the founders are douche-marketers ... and it's a pity to see such things pay off, even if in a suboptimal exit.

Money isn't everything.

Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#33

Post by jmathai »

majani wrote: post #31

I don't want to speak for the founders, but looking at the factors surrounding this acquisition(little innovation, spam tactics, low price, unrelated acquirer), it is clear that Socialcam was a build-to-flip company. And as a build-to-flip company, it was a fantastically executed one at that. Some people (pg included[1]) build companys just so they can sell them off one day. Many around here get worked up by that rea…

I don't care if your goal is to change the world. But please, don't make it worse (spam).

But congrats to the team on the acquisition. Maybe Socialcam will die under Autodesk and everyone wins!

Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#34

Post by cmcewen »

pg wrote: post #25
cmcewen wrote: post #23

Most people seem confused by Autodesk part of this headline. Am I the only one confused by the $60M? Look at the traffic decline: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/socialcam.com My understanding is that a bunch of people clicked on Socialcam when it showed up in their news feed and didn't know they were signing up - now it seems the numbers are starting to reflect that not many people actually use it. Maybe I'm just craz…

I don't know about their traffic but I would not be surprised if it had decined. Growth comes from paying attention to growth. But getting acquired, like raising money, is an immense drain on attention. In both cases it can put a startup in a dangerous pinch.

I can't speak from experience about getting acquired, but I definitely see how it could be an attention drain. I was more speaking to the stickiness of the product. Socialcam grew really quickly, but shrunk just as fast because people didn't stay around. That to me seems very hard to monetize.

Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#35

Post by stephengillie »

pwny wrote: post #5

This is somewhat surprising but not THAT much considering Autodesk makes a lot of creative finishing products and are trying to penetrate the consumer/indie space. (for example, Autodesk Smoke 2013 will cost ~25% of what Smoke 2012 did: http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/autodesk-smoke-2013/ ) While this doesn't seem to be that much in line with their current product line, they can experiment in the mobile space, acquir…

Autodesk has apps[1] which work pretty well. I think they're trying to expand into the photo-measurement space, competing with companies like E-Template[2], measuring walls, rooms, and objects by analyzing a photo.

If they could morph SocialCam into an app to take photo/video, upload to their servers to do the math, then output to their app (or another part of their ecosystem), they would provide an incredible mobile utility that would both heavily impact the photo-measurement industry, and provide a massive gain to the 3d-printing early adopters. This is the kind of disruption that photo-measurement and 3d printing need.

[1] http://www.autocadws.com/mobile [2] http://www.etemplatesystem.com/

Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#36

Post by salimmadjd »

At first I was surprised by Authodesk acquisition. However, there seem to be some logic to this and I think it could be result in a big win-win for both of them.

SocialCam or "SocialScam" as I call it, used some spammy stuff to show traction. Right or wrong, fake or real, this traction is probably what Autodesk bought into. Given the amount of visual editing technology and image processing knowhow that exist in the autodesk, this marriage would allow autodesk a platform to build and potentially become the market leader in video editing and sharing on the mobile space.

Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#37

Post by wilfra »

dave1619 wrote: post #20

My first reaction was, "only $60 million?". SocialCam had huge traction and was winning the social video space. Why exit now? If they would have kept plugging away, couldn't they have gotten a much bigger exit? Siebel did say in the article that video wasn't like pics and it was much harder for users to adopt. I wonder if engagement wasn't as high as it appeared or if their retention wasnt good. There must have been…

Seems pretty clear there were (are) some pretty big problems under the hood, even though they did a World class job of gaming the metrics TechCrunch, investors etc care about.

Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#39

Post by natrius »

alaskamiller wrote: post #21
debacle wrote: post #2

I think I can speak for everyone when I say "Autodesk? Really?"

No, you can't. Is Hacker News crowded out by kids these days? Autodesk of now is a collection of products and companies that vary from CAD software to online photo editing to 3D Studio Max to Maya and a variety of video filter and processing. Think about that for a second. They make professional grade video finishing software. Socialcam is a casual video sharing community with a variety of video finishing processes a…

"Is Hacker News crowded out by kids these days?"

I don't think Autodesk's plans are self-evident enough for this sort of thing.

Re: Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M

#40

Post by gcb »

crisnoble wrote: post #19
sanxiyn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub for CAM?

Does that exist? It should...

Every format fights very hard to be proprietary.

yeah, they all can export to something common. But unless you can diff what was changed, this will continue to be impossible (very hard)

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