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Beeper acquired by Automattic

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#41

Post by user_7832 »

misnome wrote: post #24
user_7832 wrote: post #12

Honestly given how dim of a view Apple takes of others tearing down their artificial walls, having the (legal) backing of a large company might be a good thing... assuming they don't shut it down of course.

Beeper does plenty besides PR stunts (which seems to have paid off)

You mean the other chat apps, right? Or do they do something other than chat as well?

In any case I'm not sure if I'd call their iMessage thing a PR stunt (okay, the tweets were likely PR), I'm just happy they support as many standards as they can. (I'm also not sure if my original comment was seen as wrong or controversial judging by the downvote)

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#42

Post by latchkey »

Here is my Beeper timeline:

March 9, 2021: Paid $120

June 2, 2021: It's your turn to start using Beeper

June 10, 2021: Invite code for upcoming Beeper onboarding

July 2, 2021: totally locked up now

At which point, I had a few more back and forth emails (looks like about 27 from 7/2/2021 - 7/16/2021), and finally gave up.

Good for them to get that exit. They put a lot of work into it, but it seemed like an impossible problem to solve.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#43

Post by yoavm »

eugenekolo wrote: post #7

Smart of Beeper to accept an acquisition/exit as soon as possible before their product gets further eroded by non-public APIs they're reliant on. Tough to build a business where at any time your product can get wiped out by Apple/Meta.

With all the new regulations coming out of the EU, I think that if Beeper stays around long enough they might actually live to see the day where these networks have official APIs.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#44

Post by TechRemarker »

Belphemur wrote: post #5

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, it mentioned Texts and Beeper teams will be merging under the Beeper brand. So essentially the end of Texts. Presumably will bring some parts of Texts app to Beeper that doesn't exist, but overall glad I abandoned Texts little while back, since while loved the idea, was very buggy with notifications delayed, or sometimes unable to send certain types of messages through certain services etc. And no pathway at the time for support on iOS. With all the EU stuff, there is a chance maybe people will be forced to open up more as would love to have a single app to manage all messaging but certainly far from hopeful that will come to be, at least without downsides.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#45

Post by kilroy123 »

unshavedyak wrote: post #22
kilroy123 wrote: post #4

I hope they don't change the pricing after this. I've been using Beeper for a few years now.

What pricing? I've been on Beeper for a few months and i've not seen any. Ironically i joined because of iMessage, which got almost immediately ripped from me because Beeper thought it was good idea to piss off Apple (... sorry, annoyed). When i joined the service was great, but the last couple months (basically since the iMessage drama) it has been weirdly unstable. I see a lot of encrypted messages (as in, the mess…

I paid $120 up front. I'm worried they'll switch to a monthly subscription after this.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#46

Post by gnicholas »

Does anyone know how much Beeper raised, or how the economics of this exit work out? Just curious how this stacks up for everyone.

UPDATE: To date, Beeper had raised $16 million in outside funding, including an $8 million Series A from Initialized. Other investors include YC, Samsung Next, Liquid2Ventures, and angels Garry Tan, Kevin Mahaffey, Niv Dror, and the group SV Angel. [1]

1: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/09/wordpress-com-owner-automa...

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#47

Post by [deleted] »

theamk wrote: post #14
eugenekolo wrote: post #7

Smart of Beeper to accept an acquisition/exit as soon as possible before their product gets further eroded by non-public APIs they're reliant on. Tough to build a business where at any time your product can get wiped out by Apple/Meta.

I would not be surprised if this was their plan from day 1: (1) Create a product which relies on non-public APIs which can be disabled at any time. (2) Generate lots of press visibility. (3) Sell itself to some gullible org before the whole thing comes crashing down.

[deleted]

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#48

Post by riedel »

eugenekolo wrote: post #7

Smart of Beeper to accept an acquisition/exit as soon as possible before their product gets further eroded by non-public APIs they're reliant on. Tough to build a business where at any time your product can get wiped out by Apple/Meta.

They are running Matrix bridges in the cloud for people that do not want to self host. Don't think the iMessage stunt was really planned. It was an opportunity to get visibility. Should rather thank them: they put regulatory pressure on apple.

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#49

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

I wonder what the angle is here. Is Automattic going to help them fight a legal battle against Apple’s practices with locking down their computing devices and platforms? Do they even have the resources for that? Or is this just an acquihire and abandonment of that whole messaging thing?

Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic

#50

Post by nicce »

kilroy123 wrote: post #45
unshavedyak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What pricing? I've been on Beeper for a few months and i've not seen any. Ironically i joined because of iMessage, which got almost immediately ripped from me because Beeper thought it was good idea to piss off Apple (... sorry, annoyed). When i joined the service was great, but the last couple months (basically since the iMessage drama) it has been weirdly unstable. I see a lot of encrypted messages (as in, the mess…

I paid $120 up front. I'm worried they'll switch to a monthly subscription after this.

Since texts.com has subscription and rumor says that they are merged, just a matter of time.
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