
Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M - Illniyar
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/23/website-builder-wix-acquires-art-community-deviantart-for-36m/
======
neom
From 2001-2007 I worked on helping build the community at dA. Had such an
interesting and unique childhood and teenage years due to deviantART (and
IRC). I owe everyone from that time a huge thank you for helping me become who
I am today. It lost all it's magic (for me) when Scott and Eric Kolb left.
Angelo is an absolutely amazing guy and I really really admire him but it was
pretty sad to watch the community die. FYI, Chris Bolt the dude who built a
lot of the tech there is INCREDIBLY and if you can figure out how to hire him,
hire him - afaik he hasn't worked anywhere else in the last 17 years.

~~~
kepano
I was there from 2000-2006 and feel the exact same. I grew up on deviantART.
All my friends were there. It opened my eyes to many forms of creativity and I
may have never become a designer or entrepreneur without it.

At the risk of embarrassing myself, here's what I was up to from ages 15-20:
[http://a-t-o-m-i-c.deviantart.com/](http://a-t-o-m-i-c.deviantart.com/)

~~~
sotojuan
The 00s decade in general seems to have been the high point for
small/idependent/hobby-based online communities in general.

~~~
rrhyne
You too can create an off world colony.

------
minimaxir
Yesterday, coincidentally, there was a surprisingly silly and _heated_
discussion in a large Facebook group about whether a person who specializes in
Wix can be considered a "web developer."
([https://www.facebook.com/groups/hackathonhackers/permalink/1...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/hackathonhackers/permalink/1514102138645266/))

Hacker News is biased toward DIYing websites from scratch, but WYSIWYG
builders like WIx are very important for those who aren't tech-savvy.
DeviantArt, in a world where designers must build their own overly-elaborate
portfolios with JavaScript and CSS shenanigans to stand out, serves as a good
compliment.

~~~
egeozcan
You are a definitely "person who develops for web" but not necessarily a Web
Developer within the context of any community which assigned a specific
meaning to that title.

The definition may, of course, change over time and it already differs across
communities. On the top of my head, I know many freelancers who wouldn't
consider you a web developer without good Photoshop skills and many
JavaScript- _oriented_ developers wouldn't consider you one if you can't write
a line of JS without using a library.

I, however, don't know any significant group which would call a person who can
only author on Wix, a Web Developer. Ignoring that would surely create
miscommunication and would be considered a wrong or misguided use of the
title.

~~~
mcbits
The first I heard of Wix was a few months ago when a local news site deployed
their new design. The page would be completely blank for 10-15 seconds while
it made hundreds of requests for useless little React turdlets. As far as I
can tell, they "fixed" it by moving away from Wix.

If that's normal for a Wix site, then I would say no, nobody involved on
either side of the transaction is a web developer except in the most
pejorative sense of the term.

~~~
yestoallthat
I thought you were exaggerating, but holy cow... maybe those who disagree can
find me a site from
[http://www.wix.com/explore/websites](http://www.wix.com/explore/websites) for
which that doesn't hold true, because I gave up after a few which were all
incredibly abysmal. Yeah, those sites are "stunning" alright. Aesthetically
very bland and samey, but technically utterly stunning. I wouldn't even know
how to make something that slow without using a combination of bmp images and
sleeping here and there for a few seconds.

~~~
mcbits
To be fair, I just tried a few of those sites and they're not as slow as the
one I had in mind. But I wasn't exaggerating about that particular site. Each
page view was taking at least 10 seconds to show the first pixel of content
for what is effectively a static blog.

~~~
yestoallthat
Sounds like all 3 I clicked on.. they all loaded 150+ tiny files, and started
out with several seconds of a white screen.

------
blackhole
One potentially alarming sentence in this article is "Wix will open up
DeviantArt’s repository of art and creative community to the Wix platform,
giving Wix’s users access to that work to use in their own site building."

Exactly what do they mean by that? Will it be opt-in? Will it only cover art
that's already under Creative Commons? Will be it all Creative Commons? Does a
Wix site count as commercial use? I can't imagine people would be very happy
about their art suddenly being available for use elsewhere without their
consent.

Hopefully, this is much ado about nothing, and Wix won't do anything terrible,
but we've seen technology companies do stupid things before. At the very
least, it would be nice if they elaborated on their plans regarding this.

~~~
buro9
[https://about.deviantart.com/policy/submission/](https://about.deviantart.com/policy/submission/)

    
    
        3. License To Use Artist Materials. As and when Artist Materials are
           uploaded to the DeviantArt Site(s), Artist grants to DeviantArt a
           worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to do the following
           things during the Term:
           a) to prepare and encode Artist Materials or any part of them for
              digital or analog transmission, manipulation and exhibition in
              any format and by any means now known or not yet known or
              invented;
           b) to display, copy, reproduce, exhibit, publicly perform,
              broadcast, rebroadcast, transmit, retransmit, distribute through
              any electronic means (including analog and digital) or other
              means, and electronically or otherwise publish any or all of
              the Artist Materials, including any part of them, and to include
              them in compilations for publication, by any and all means and
              media now known or not yet known or invented ;
           c) to modify, adapt, change or otherwise alter the Artist Materials
              (e.g., change the size) and use the Artist Materials as described
              in Section 3(b); and ...
    
    

The only thing a DeviantArt user can do is to delete their content, shut their
account, and leave the site.

The policies only apply for the "Term" in which a user exists and the art
exists on the platform.

~~~
pdpi

      a) We can re-encode your images, to whatever format
         we need to make the website work.
      b) We are allowed to display the pictures online.
         If something happens and the internet stops existing,
         we'll still be allowed to show people pictures where
         we go after the web. We are also allowed to display
         pictures not only by themselves but also as part of
         a gallery. E.g. in search results.
      c) We're allowed to resize, convert to grayscale, etc
         so that galleries, search results, etc, all work
         the way a modern website is expected to.
    

You need all those rights to be able to operate DeviantArt. You really don't
want the licence to become the limiting factor when you implement a new
feature on the website, so you need to be quite broad.

~~~
usrusr
Sure, but you those very same terms could also be used to operate something
entirely different from deviantart. Was the parent post accusingly pointing
fingers or was it just dusting facts?

That Wix scenario doesn't look all that terrible by the way: imagine
deviantart pivoting into some kind of racket machine publishing connections
between cringeworthy "early works" and the current employers of meanwhile
professional graphics artists, now that would be an evil use of the
repository.

------
bhouston
Seems like a low valuation as they raised $10M in 2013 from Autodesk:

[https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/deviantart-autodesk-
fundin...](https://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/deviantart-autodesk-funding/)
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1402519/000140251913...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1402519/000140251913000002/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml)

I can not figure out what the valuation was of DA when it got the Autodesk
investment.

I also notice that ArtStation.com seems to be rising on DeviantArt.com but
still a way to go:
[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/deviantart.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/deviantart.com)
[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/artstation.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/artstation.com)

~~~
TheGrassyKnoll
> "...deal will increase its revenue outlook by around $8 million,..."
    
    
      So $36 million/$8 million = 4.5 times sales
    

>"...40 million registered members..."

    
    
      So less than a buck per registered user

------
omn1
DeviantArt has always been a nice community. I find it surprising that the
price is so low given that they add a lot of value.

~~~
wmeredith
Having moved in Deviant Art circles (some time ago, admittedly) I'd say one
reason for the low price might be that, somewhat like Reddit, the core values
of the community make it challenging to monetize.

~~~
kijin
Yep, it would be hard to get away with ugly, intrusive ads when your users are
obsessed with aesthetics.

I also can't imagine the print-selling business reaching the kind of scale
that today's VCs would like to see.

~~~
avian
> hard to get away with ugly, intrusive ads

Deviantart has click-through ads that overlay the content on mobile and a big
bright banner for registered users if they are using an adblocker.

It seems they are already getting away with ugly and intrusive.

------
chejazi
Statement from DeviantArt: [http://spyed.deviantart.com/journal/DeviantArt-
and-Wix-With-...](http://spyed.deviantart.com/journal/DeviantArt-and-Wix-With-
a-Kindred-Spirit-665239030)

~~~
porsupah
Significantly, they've updated that with a section that deserves highlighting
here:

"There's been some confusion around wording used TechCrunch's reporting of the
DeviantArt and Wix story.

Their article includes: "...Wix will open up DeviantArt’s repository of art
and creative community to the Wix platform, giving Wix’s users access to that
work to use in their own site building."

Please know that the DeviantArt Submission Policy, Terms of Service and
Copyright Policy all remain the same. Deviants continue to own their own
works. In the future, there's a possibility Wix might provide opportunities
for you to license your work -- only if you want to -- to more people around
the world. And, there will be opportunities for Wix users to join DeviantArt
and make the community stronger."

------
tannhaeuser
Well I can say wix.com definitely isn't going to fly in Germany (eg. for the
same reason that Mitsubishi's "Pajero" vehicle isn't marketed under that name
in latin/US America and Spain)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero)

~~~
Sujan
Actually:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/3d1ux4/wixcom_ma...](https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/3d1ux4/wixcom_marketing_story_for_germany/)
160k views on
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkAQLw5w1U4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkAQLw5w1U4)

Your weakness can be your strength...

~~~
nathancahill
Your wixness can be your strength...

------
jastanton
One thing I discovered about Wix the other day. They are active on their
public GitHub repos and they are have very high quality React Native packages!

~~~
sidlls
My only experiences with Wix websites have been completely negative. Slow load
times, non-functional interfaces, menus and the like and terrible designs (as
in, presentation layout and formatting of graphics and other objects) have
been the norm for me. It's cheap, and folks are getting what they pay for.

------
Grue3
Not sure what's more surprising, that Wix is so big, or that DA is so cheap.

------
intenscia
DA is what inspired me to make my first website. They really pioneered strong
community collaboration, long before social networking on the web became cool.

I find the valuation a little surprizing, but I guess that is what happens
when you value an established business on actuals instead of potential. Good
get wix.

------
brightball
I think the most interesting detail here is that Wix is doing well enough that
it has $36M to spend.

~~~
elsewhen
i dont think it is too surprising considering that wix is a public company
with a market cap of $2.7B

[https://www.google.com/finance?cid=353014528816355](https://www.google.com/finance?cid=353014528816355)

~~~
mbesto
More importantly they have high gross margins and debt is still really cheap
right now.

------
pbnjay
I remember spending many hours browsing dA back way back when. There are so
many art/design/etc communities now that I'm sure it's getting more difficult
to retain users.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
What are some other art communities? I've been looking for a decent
alternative for a while

~~~
NM-Super
People typically use Tumblr at this point. It's not designed for art, and it
has issues with big images, but it has a fairly active community, so people
use it. There's also niche sites, like FA for furries and various boorus for
anime fans. There's also a semi-active twitter artist community, although 90%
of those people also post elsewhere.

Shameless plug: I've been stealth-working on an art site for several years, so
you could try that out if you'd like. That's at
[https://www.imagehex.com/](https://www.imagehex.com/).

~~~
reiichiroh
ArtStation seems to be popular.

------
jackcosgrove
Thinking back on all of the fun I've had looking at DeviantArt posts over the
years, I'm saddened that it's all only worth $36M. All that human effort...art
is a tough gig.

------
peterburkimsher
I still have a DeviantArt hoodie and wear it regularly! I bought it in 2007,
along with a couple of well-designed t-shirts. I think that those might have
been my first online purchases.

------
bookbinder
I thought DeviantArt would be worth more than $36M.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
The valuation makes sense to me. Their userbase is hard to monetise (I'd wager
a large chunk of kids aged 10 to 18 with limited purchasing power - and the
adults there are definitely in the AdBlock crowd). Things like premium site
subscriptions and print services will only take you so far - and now that
we're post-"mainstream Internet" its growth is limited to the rate people are
being born and given its anti-establishment streak I don't think the site will
last long in China.

So if the site is making $10m/yr profit, 3 years' revuenue and no expectations
of growth means $36m is a fair price.

------
erelde
Has there been any development to the Wix/Wordpress story ?

~~~
pmlnr
Not enough information, what story exactly?

~~~
erelde
My bad, this story[1] about Wix "stealing" code from Wordpress.

[1]:[https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/11/wordp...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/11/wordpress-and-wix-trade-shots-over-alleged-theft-of-open-
source-code/)

~~~
Illniyar
As far as I know that saga ended when wix open sourced their mobile client.

------
jaleh
The DeviantArt platform and community had an immense impact on pushing me
creatively in my early teen years and onward. I have not experienced anything
like it since. Had it not been for DeviantArt, I'm not sure if I would have
pursued my art and design career as early and as seriously as I did.

I truly hope that this chapter will bring the unique magic of DeviantArt to a
new audience.

\- A "til Hell freezes over" tier Core member

------
dcmininni
Is there an alternative to deviant art after this?

~~~
NM-Super
I commented briefly on some alternatives here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13716343](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13716343)

------
grahamo
This seems, like most things, it could be good or bad. Wix could choose to
launch a Graphicriver / Canva / Adobe Stock type add-on that could help
artists monetize their work. Or they could straight up license the work and
pocket the money via some legal mumbo jumbo. Hopefully it is opt-in and the
first case.

------
sengork
DA is one of the web's icons and it complemented the rise of CGI extremely
well.

For me the site was at times educational helping explore software tools others
used to create their works of art. Screenshots on the other hand were
extremely useful in desktop customisation and seeing what was possible to do
across OS platforms.

------
joshmn
DA has been around forever. I'm curious what they would have peaked at as far
as value goes.

------
baldfat
Why do I feel like this is the litmus test for someone to see if they want to
save Flickr?

~~~
asleepawake
Not sure what you mean by that

~~~
wattt
Flickr is the only part of Yahoo that is worth anything. The question is how
much.

~~~
Grue3
The also own Tumblr, you know, the site that pretty much killed deviantArt in
the first place.

~~~
joshmn
How did Tumblr kill DA? They're incredibly different, though used mostly by
the same demographic.

------
cahoot_bird
About 8 years ago I got a virus while viewing someone's portfolio on
DeviantArt on a page when my computer rebooted. My best guess is maybe it was
through third party ads. I've never completely trusted DeviantArt ever since.

~~~
20after4
They have a lot of problems with that. The reason: Most ad networks lump them
in with porn sites because they allow adult content to be uploaded. Most major
brands won't touch it so the display ads are very low quality and riddled with
malware.

I did quite a bit of work on tracking down and swatting the malware ads but
they were almost impossible to track down and there was no accountability
through the ad networks.

(I worked as a developer at deviantArt from 2009 to 2013)

------
krapp
Awesome. This is a perfect excuse to delete my 10+ year old Deviant Art
account.

------
artursapek
I spent a lot of time on dA as a teenager. Press F to pay respects.

------
cft
Apparently prices scale non-linearly with the market share. Wiki says it has
26m members, and yet the price is 1% of Snap. Snap definitely doesn't have
2.6bn users.

~~~
NM-Super
There's very few completely linear relationships in all of economics.
Economies of scale, especially, are often at least polynomial.

I'd say a website with 100 million members is worth far more than 4x as much
as a site with 26.

------
Taylor_OD
Wow. I didn't see that coming. I've used Wix in the past for a couple websites
and I enjoy the platform but I am curious how they will benefit from this.

~~~
huula
There are paying users!

------
pluma
This seems like one of those headlines that would have been a lot more
interesting ten years ago.

------
bluetwo
What did people think of the price?

------
glasz
always wondered what dA's stack is. anybody has any insight?

~~~
20after4
Very straightforward traditional LAMP with lots of database sharding and
various smart optimizations to handle extreme traffic volumes.

They used to have a custom file storage back-end which resembles something
like swift. That may have been replaced with AWS after I left.

------
austincheney
I didn't form my account there until 12 Sep 2000. I was late to the party as
the site opened about 6 weeks prior. Before DeviantArt there was Deskmod.com.

------
rublev
"Website builder Wix acquires terrible amateur hentai repository DeviantArt
for a $36M loss"

~~~
navs
You're incredibly wrong about the amateur part.

