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>> Hey, we got acqui-hired by Dropbox and we are now shutting ReadMill down! Thanks for all the fish and hope you enjoyed ours.
That's it. That's all it would have taken.
This feels like a huge loss. Readmill stood head and shoulders above other reading apps like Kindle and iBooks in terms of design. It was also one of the few services that would let you upload ePub books to your account through the website and then sync your library to your mobile device. "Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!" I wish the team all the best at…
You can upload your own books into Google Books and syncs across devices (mobile/web). https://play.google.com/books/uploads
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Tip to engineers new to the startup world: If the startup you work for has any success or traction, but runs out of money, you will be sold off as a team like cattle. When startups shutdown, all assets -- servers, client contracts, software, furniture, and teams -- will be sold off to recoup losses. You won't have much say in it and it kind of sucks. In fairness to the CEO's that broker these deals, they are probably…
Well, if you are an employee of an acquired startup, you always have the option of leaving. The acquirer will try to make sure that between unvested equity and retention packages you have enough incentive to stay, but it's really your choice.
Employees in the acquired company are put under heavy pressure to take whatever deal is offered. Who wouldn't want to keep working with their friends? The CEO's/senior team will keep the employees out of the loop so that rank-and-file don't move first and take any negotiating power away from the CEO.
Not every acqui-hire is a payoff for the employees in the acquired company. It can also be a face-saving gesture when money runs out to make a shutdown look semi-successful for the founders.
What? Another service I start to use and shutdowns just a few days later...sad! That's a problem with free services, and sometimes even with some paid services.
I think it's a general problem with services. I much prefer using desktop software, even when it's discontinued, it still works. I think the next big thing could be bringing App Stores to servers. 1 click install, zero config, etc. I recently set up my own webmail, it was a pain in the ass. It could be made a lot easier, and I think people would pay for the convenience.
The SaaS model is deeply flawed, and once people start to realize the implications for security, privacy, and ongoing availability, there'll probably be a shift back to running your own software on your own system.
Whomever comes up with a good consumerized VPS platform with an app store is probably going to win big.
This feels like a huge loss. Readmill stood head and shoulders above other reading apps like Kindle and iBooks in terms of design. It was also one of the few services that would let you upload ePub books to your account through the website and then sync your library to your mobile device. "Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!" I wish the team all the best at…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, if you are an employee of an acquired startup, you always have the option of leaving. The acquirer will try to make sure that between unvested equity and retention packages you have enough incentive to stay, but it's really your choice.
That's certainly one version of what can happen. Another version is that none of the equity transfers to the new company. The acquiring company will offer you a modest boost in salary and similar new stock options. If you don't take the offer because they're low balling you or you don't like the new company, your old company will terminate you at the end of the week without any severance. Or the new company will offe…
Truly, having your company fail is a horrible thing, at least in Silicon Valley right now. :)
Any recommendations for a replacement?
Readmill have done an awesome job at giving us tools to rescue our data. But where to put it? How can we keep getting value out of the time we've invested into Readmill? I personally have over 600 highlights and tens of thousands words written in the margins, now locked up in a big JSON dump.
A few of us have banded together to build a tool ( http://readshelf.co ) to rehome your Readmill library. It'll sync your Readmill highlights up until July 1 (and you can upload your dump as well.) When Readmill shuts down for good, we're hoping there'll be a nice replacement service that we can integrate with—giving you some continuity with your library.
Of course, all of your stuff will be exportable in a useful format; lest history repeat itself. In fact, we're really keen to hear suggestions on:
- a sustainable business model for something like this
- some best practices around your data: access, portability, etc.
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You can upload your own books into Google Books and syncs across devices (mobile/web). https://play.google.com/books/uploads
As of now, it really doesn't look like a wise investment in anything Google that is not replaceable e.g. Search.
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As of now, it really doesn't look like a wise investment in anything Google that is not replaceable e.g. Search.
With the proliferation of Nexus tablets (or Android tablets in general) and that Play Books is stock in the OS, I feel pretty confident in it sticking around.