
Posterous acquired by Twitter - michaelfairley
http://blog.posterous.com/big-news
======
callmeed
In a small way, every talent acquisition poisons the well for future,
bootstrapped startups.

It erodes the confidence of users and potential customers. People put their
company blog on Posterous, they add their business to GoWalla, they gave
AdGrok a few hours of their time, etcetera, etcetera.

I'm not saying I would turn down the offer. But I fear the long-term effect of
all these acqui-hires is my potential customers saying "No thanks. I doubt you
geeks will be around in 18 months" when I market to them.

~~~
harryh
What do you think would happen most of the time if these acquihires didn't
happen? The companies would just go out of business and the services would be
shut down anyway.

~~~
ghshephard
One alternative would be for these startups to scrimp and struggle for a long
time on Ramen Profitability, maintaining their services while they sought to
expand, find a business model, open up new veins while continuing the old,
perhaps providing a graceful upgrade into the new portfolio.

I'm with the GP poster -while I probably would do the same thing in an
acquihire situation, it does start to (somewhat) poison the well over time for
newer startups.

While I love Path to bits - I have zero clue what their business model will
be, and wonder what will happen to all my carefully journaled "moments" if
Path gets acquhired sometime in the future. Somebody needs to come up with a
good Diaspora like solution for personal journaling where _i_ control the
data, and store it on something that is likely to be persistent (S3 is the
only thing that I can think of that has a greater than 90% chance of being
around in 10+ years. Dropbox, if they have good public offering, will likely
be the second candidate)

I'd pay money for that - $10 for a Dropbox/S3 storage social network akin to
what we get with Path today.

~~~
ctide
I don't think you really need to worry about Path being acquihired. Given the
people involved, and the fact that they already turned down a reported 100
million acquihire offer from Google, I don't really expect Path to go that
route.

For your question about a place to store all of your data, check out:
<http://lockerproject.org/>. While it doesn't support Path yet (they don't
have a public API) it certainly will when Path makes their API available.

~~~
herval
Loopt once had a 500m valuation, and then sold for 43m, one of these days...
Why couldn't Path (or anyone) go down the same route?

~~~
ctide
Because an acquihire doesn't have a positive effect on Dave Morin's life. He's
back at a big company again, and he's already filthy rich so what's a few more
millions?

~~~
vaksel
sure it does...it allows him to exit with his head held high, and allows to
add another acquisition to his resume. And frees up his time to start up
another idea that he thinks has a lot more chance of success.

------
mikebo
From their acquisition FAQ: "We’ll give you ample notice before any changes to
the service and we’ll share clear instructions about how to move your content
to other services. In the meantime, your Spaces will remain up and running
without disruption."

Sounds like posterous is not long for this world. This is a bummer, I really
like posterous.

~~~
corin_
The line immediately before that in the blog is "Posterous Spaces will remain
up and running without disruption."

Sounds more like they're answering a potentially frequently answered question,
not hinting that they'll be shutting the service.

~~~
benatkin
Reading between the lines in the article and the FAQ it seems this indeed will
happen:

[http://posterous.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/56001-...](http://posterous.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/56001-acquisition-
faq)

> What happens to my Space? Will Posterous eventually shut down?

> You can use your Space(s) exactly as you have in the past. We’ll give you
> ample notice before any changes or disruptions to the service and we’ll
> provide specific instructions for exporting your content to another service.

Notice they don't actually answer the question.

[http://blog.twitter.com/2012/03/welcoming-posterous-team-
to-...](http://blog.twitter.com/2012/03/welcoming-posterous-team-to-
flock.html)

> Posterous engineers, product managers and others will join our teams working
> on several key initiatives that will make Twitter even better.

Sounds like they'll be working on Twitter, not Posterous. It doesn't say
anything about people at Twitter working at Posterous, so it doesn't sound
like a merge.

~~~
jamesaguilar
They can't exactly promise to remain up forever. That's not in their control
post-acquisition.

~~~
ceejayoz
There's a big difference between "Um... ah... we'll tell you before we delete
everything" and "We've received assurances from Twitter that they intend to
support the project for the foreseeable future", though.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Yes, but if they haven't received those assurances, there's no benefit in
highlighting the fact (for either the users or Posterous), and much potential
harm if users spook and Twitter later decides to continue supporting it.

~~~
robryan
They would have just been through a negotiation process for acquisition. Of
they didn't seek out assurances or none were given I find it highly unlikely
there will be any result but a shutdown. If twitter was interested in
posterous the product, it would have been front and center in the
announcement.

------
dredmorbius
This would mean that prior to this acquisition, Twitter was preposterous.

</ducks>

~~~
pfraze
Either you ducked too early, or your XML is malformed.

~~~
dredmorbius
The ducks tag is always well-formed, by definition.

All your ducks are in a row.

------
citricsquid
Seems strange for a company this "developed" to go as part of a talent
acquisition, does this imply that the company doesn't see a way to grow beyond
what it is now and believes that what it is now isn't _good enough_ to warrant
continuing on with the option to join Twitter? Although I guess 4 years isn't
that old in the grand scheme of things.

~~~
alaskamiller
Tumblr "won" the space.

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tumblr_reels_in_big_tra...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tumblr_reels_in_big_traffic_now.php)

WordPress.com figured out how to monetize with VIP hosting/support.

Not to cheapen the work done but sometimes it's just how the cookies crumble.

~~~
mortenjorck
In my mind, Spaces was a pivot to a completely different market. My primary
Tumblr is a photo blog, but my Posterous is a place where I share things
privately with friends. Posterous has become a sort of Facebook alternative
for me, and I really don't look forward to seeing it shut down.

------
hopeless
Does anyone else see this as a YC/VC-success but a business-failure? I'd be
far more impressed if they grew Posterous into a _profitable_ company. And so
this team is moving from one unprofitable company to another. Disappointing :(

~~~
nl
_And so this team is moving from one unprofitable company to another_

There's a pretty good chance Twitter is already profitable[1][2]. If they
aren't then it's pretty clear they can do a facebook and turn on the profits
when they choose.

[1] [http://mashable.com/2011/09/29/twitter-revenue-to-
hit-400-mi...](http://mashable.com/2011/09/29/twitter-revenue-to-
hit-400-million-by-2013-study/)

[2]
[http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-06-30/tech/30012755...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-06-30/tech/30012755_1_twitter-
advertisers-revenue)

------
kmfrk
Looks like it was your time to move on, Posterous!

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1455593>

If I worked at Tumblr, I'd put the blog post in my link in a glass frame.

~~~
robryan
Yeah was thinking about that campaign when I saw this thread. Sure it was
arrogant and bent the truth but was probably effective at exposing a greater
number of users to the platform.

------
Steveism
This reminds me of a blog post from Maciej, the creator of Pinboard, regarding
why sometimes free services aren't all they're cracked up to be:
<http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/>

------
chrisacky
The FAQ was reallly difficult to gauge the overall direction that Posterous is
headed.

I use Posterous for my personal and startup blogs.

Reading the Posterous FAQ, they barely use any "exciting" colloquialisms.
Everything is cast in a shadow of uncertainty. In fact, I would probably go
far as saying this is one of the worst acquisition FAQ's I've read. I'm very
pleased for the Posterous team, but you haven't _truely_ given any insight as
to where you plan to be in 6 months from now.

Some startups are just "aqhirisations", and from a cynical reading this sounds
all too familiar.

I could be wrong, and perhaps the author of that article just never read
Shakespeare, because right now I can see the clouds overhead.

~~~
sbierwagen
Get out now. If this follows the pattern of, say, every talent acquisition
ever, they'll shut down the site and delete all user data in 3-6 months.

------
webwanderings
This simply means that Twitter will fill its own void of 140 characters and
above space. I think it's a win-win for everyone. Without more-
than-140-characters, the Twitter remains simply the link sharing platform.
With a blogging service attached to its hip, they (Twitter) can compete with
FB and Google Plus.

~~~
edbloom
this. At first glance I assumed "talent acquisition" but I was only thinking
today (uncanny timing) that twitter really needs more content distribution
channels to gain more mainstream usage. This together with the Summify
acquisition point to the possibility that twitter is going to change it's
content distribution model from pure streams of content to more curated, blog
style channels. I think there's huge potential in this. Let's see what
happens.

------
iag
This is a bit odd to me as an acquisition. It's unlikely to be a talent
acquisition given the userbase/brand of posterous, but the two product doesn't
seem to mesh at all IMO. Does anyone have a theory as to what's the synergy
behind these two companies that could justify an acquisition?

~~~
HardyLeung
Perhaps Twitter wants to own all things micro-blogging (that's the term
Twitter's Chinese competitor uses), whatever that means.

~~~
sbierwagen
Posterous isn't really micro-blogging. It's regular blogging. Macro-blogging.

~~~
jemfinch
Until Steve Yegge's using the platform, it doesn't qualify for the term
"macro-blogging".

------
sunnysideup
Is Twitter profitable? It seems one company without a business model acquires
another company without business model?

~~~
x5315
Twitter has a business model. It's working fine. See:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-interview-
twitter-c...](http://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-interview-twitter-
chief-revenue-officer-adam-bain-2011-11)

------
skrebbel
Horrible. Do founders not care about their own products anymore? Or is this
just forced-by-the-VCs?

I don't generally mind when this happens with a services firm, or a tool with
very few users, but Posterous? We all moved our Wordpresses there. True
enough, we all got it for free so we can't complain, but I can't help feel
that the Posterous owners let something lovely fly. Ahwell, no 10x ROI eh?

------
bryanh
Begin countdown until shutdown...

~~~
tatsuke95
Also begin countdown until potential customers/users/regular people start
saying, "I'm not signing up for another service that I can't trust will still
exist next year."

Sad to say, but every time I find myself using a tool or site regularly, this
crosses my mind...

------
charlieok
Score one more for people and organizations who invested in running their own
site on their own servers (or vm instances).

------
startupEmployee
As a startup employee, I'm curious to know how much do employees stand to gain
from such talent acquisitions?

~~~
jimboyoungblood
you get to keep your job. that's (usually) better than not having a job.

~~~
a4agarwal
_sigh_. So much false information in this thread.

Everyone who joined Twitter was handsomely rewarded for their hard work and
their accomplishments at Posterous. We're taking much of what we built at
Posterous to make Twitter a more powerful platform.

If the employees simply got to keep their job, they wouldn't have accepted the
Twitter offer and instead have joined another startup. There are plenty of
great opportunities out there.

------
sachinag
Congrats to Good/Real Sachin, Garry, and all the rest of the team!

------
siculars
I would have paid for their service. What happens to my blog now? Will all
those links get /dev/nulled? Or are we gonna get to set up some 301's?

~~~
jarek
Hahaha. Startups don't do 301s. If you have any questions regarding what will
happen to your links, consult <http://tr.im/>.

Self-host anything you consider important enough to warrant a 301 down the
road.

------
VonLipwig
This makes you wonder about the current supply of talented developers. Where
has that supply gone?

I see no reason why Twitter would aquire Posterous for any reason other than
the experience that the staff have. As far as I am aware Posterous doesn't
hold any valued patents. It doesn't appear to be leading the way in pioneering
technology. I don't really see how the site itself fits in with Twitter's
strategy.

It looks like a smash and grab to get more staff. Is this a statement about
the typically applicant Twitter recieves when looking to hire? Its also a
shame as aquisition's like this are happening more and more often killing off
fairly popular websites in the process.

~~~
nakkiel
I think they just want to add more coupling between the two platforms. Sure
enough, Twitter could write such a platform on their own but perhaps it's more
time-efficient to just buy legacy technology and adapt it. Even more so when
you get the staff who built the said technology along with it.

Another aspect is the user-base that will come with Posterous.

------
justinkelly
As a long time posterous user I'm not happy about this - twitter will put
posterous in maintenance mode.

I've decided to do something about it

I've setup <http://p.ostero.us> A paid Octpress based blogging service for the
ex-posterous users - using an awesome blog platform - makes money - and thats
not ganna get purchased and killed off

Hopefully this will help other posterous user wondering where to go

* <http://p.ostero.us> * <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3713092>

------
robertp
I was an early user of Posterous and got our whole company to setup multiple
sub-domains when each of us tweeted out photos. At the time it was the best
because you didn't have any ads showing up alongside a photo (like twitpic).
Im sad to see posterous otherwise give up and just move to twitter. I feel
like if they would have kept innovating 2-3 or so years ago then they would be
at a much better place. What are their goals before they got bought? It wasnt
clear to me.

------
johnnyn
Congrats Posterous! IMO, this is one of the best teams around and Twitter will
be lucky to have them on board.

------
kevinwdavid
This was very much expected.Posterous was apparently not doing well. Compared
to tumblr, it was to hard to post content. With not much an engaging user base
compared to tumblr or wordpress, posterous acquistion by someother company was
expected.

------
majani
Is acquihire just a Silicon Valley concept? Where I'm from, a big company is
probably gonna offer you a massive salary rather than buy out a product with
no potential.

------
pnathan
I am bummed, I liked the Posterous interface pretty nicely.

~~~
SapphireSun
Likewise, it was so simple and elegant. I'm really happy for their employees,
but I wish the app would stick around. I'm thinking of migrating to tumblr,
and I'm doubly hoping they release a migration tool since tumblr doesn't
support imports and copy paste is a bitch.

------
pnayak
Apart from the employees from posterous, does posterous as a business/brand
make sense for twitter? Quite frankly, i don't see any synergies.. Any
thoughts..

------
chubs
Can anyone suggest a way to port your posterous blog to tumblr, retaining the
url's and the comments (i believe tumblr uses disqus for comments) ?

~~~
k-mcgrady
Tumblr doesn't do comments. You need to add Disqus yourself. The blog post
says that Posterous will have export options in the coming weeks.

------
jerrya
So what would the right approach be, and who would be best to approach
Twitter, to convince Twitter to open source the Posterous code?

------
usablebytes
Great. I feel happy for the Posterous guys. Many congratulations!

------
netmau5
I guess it's too late to apply.

------
shingen
Amazing, a top 500 global site (roughly), that appears likely to just close up
shop. What the hell is that?

Hey Twitter, how about you give me the platform, we'll split 50/50 anything I
make with it, I'll assume all the downside liability.

Posterous can go a lot further. This is a failure of imagination.

~~~
chintan
<https://www.quantcast.com/posterous.com>

Although this is just a subset of their total traffic, they were consistently
doubling traffic every 4 months or so.

~~~
shingen
Yep, it had a very real business opportunity.

It really does make me want to take a run at getting the platform from
Twitter, if they are in fact going to close it down. I've got the perfect name
to rebrand it with, far better than the Posterous name.

Twitter might see serious tax benefits from shutting it down after the
acquisition unfortunately. To them it might be worth more dead than alive.

~~~
wavephorm

      Yep, it had a very real business opportunity.
    

Obviously the founders knew otherwise. They saw how difficult it would be to
go for the long haul, and calculated it would be better just to take the
Twitter job offers.

~~~
shingen
It'd be the first time founders were wrong, right?

Obviously once Posterous took the A & B $10 million in venture funding, their
clock was seriously ticking. The founders no longer had real control over the
company or its future. It wouldn't surprise me if they were diluted down to
10% or less ownership each, which wipes out the incentive to continue with a
situation where you're going to see nearly zero payout due to VC terms unless
you build an absolute monster company.

No matter what they did, due to the VC they took on, they were unlikely to
have a long term time horizon unless they were 'beating' Tumblr. It was get
extraordinarily big or go home, because apparently #500 wasn't big enough.

So they bailed, and it probably made perfect sense for their situations.

------
revorad
Congrats Sachin and team.

HN Y U SO HATE?

------
sidcool
This is indeed big news.

------
nwenzel
So now when I tweet, will it push that tweet to Twitter so all my Twitter
followers will know that I tweeted?

