
Autodesk Buys Socialcam for $60M  - Straubiz
http://allthingsd.com/20120717/autodesk-buys-mobile-video-shooting-star-socialcam-for-60m/
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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)

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emmett
$60 million is a low price now?

My but we live in a world of inflation.

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majani
They have 200million unique visitors to their website according to Google
Adplanner, many of which were probably forced to register as users. Also Viddy
are behind them, yet valued at 370m. That's how I concluded that Socialcam was
sold for cheap.

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bborud
I'm imagining Autodesk's M&A team are right now getting a lecture on what
"CAM" stands for by the engineers and that there will be some facepalming.

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veyron
Though it should be said that a social CAM application is a funny idea.

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sanxiyn
GitHub for CAM?

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crisnoble
Does that exist? It should...

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anoopsreedhar
back in early 2000 we did exactly that.. and even had one model over a server-
less/p2p arch.

[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20040826005243/en/Impa...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20040826005243/en/ImpactXoft-
Introduces-Mobile-Collaborative-Design-Solution-Product)

Was too early for the market, I guess :)

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pwny
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, acquire a good team and maybe
develop some new integration between creative finishing and mobile video.

I have faith.

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stephengillie
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/>

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cmcewen
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 crazy.

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pg
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.

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mingyeow
PG - are you serious? you seriously think that their decline in growth comes
from anything other than facebook users seeing through their scam and facebook
itself shutting off their spam channels?

You think that there is any chance in hell that they can maintain that kind of
growth. Come on

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justhw
Title should read: A Facebook wall spamming app acquired for $60m.

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vertr
I blocked the app a long time ago. Wasn't very impressed with the founders in
that regard.

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mirsadm
I met these guys at work at a startup. Before meeting them I had an
overwhelming desire to punch them in the face when I heard they founded
SocialCam. In reality they are really nice and congrats on the sale!

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ricardobeat
So it's ok to spam facebook as long as you are really nice ;)

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

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alaskamiller
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 available.

~~~
natrius
_"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.

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yock
Autodesk wrote my favorite mobile photo filter app: Pixlr-o-Matic. They've
made some really interesting contributions to the mobile imaging space,
including Sketch, a drafting tool for phones and tablets. Another competent
company in this space is very welcome indeed.

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dave1619
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 something that
mad them sell this early. Just my 2cents.

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ttran4
SocialCam will never have any long term users because they spam that crap out
of everyone's Facebook wall with 15 second videos with misleading title.
Doesn't matter how much traction they have now or before eventually these
types of site will die down because they are abusing the system and tricking
the users into watching the video. How many times do you think a user will
click on a misleading video until they completely stop?

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mingyeow
The founders will be writing a ton of articles, giving a lot of talks, and
advising a lot of companies on how to build successful companies and products.

Just do not expect them to be anything but honest.

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drusenko
Congrats Michael and team! This is awesome.

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gustaf
Congrats Michael, Ammon & Guillaume! :)

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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.

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toddmorey
A picture (with filters) is worth $1 billion. A video (with filters),
apparently, is worth $60 million. Congrats to the team. Certainly an
interesting move for Autodesk.

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GuiA
SocialCam has way less users than Instagram. And as mentioned in other
comments, video has a much lower user retention rate than photo.

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zfran
Autodesk sounds like a weird acquirer, but I'm happy for them. I had heard
that they had been diluted to nothing in justin.tv so I'm glad they got the
reward they deserve.

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akaru
I read this as Autodesk Buys Socialscam for some reason.

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ed
Amazing news, guys. Congrats to the team!

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brianr
Congrats, Socialcam team!

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gaius
But, but... Autodesk is a real company making real products and real revenues.
Why??

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phpnode
To attract a new audience to their products?

