

AOL acquires Thing Labs (Brizzly) - fliph
http://corp.aol.com/2010/09/28/aol-acquires-social-software-start-up-thing-labs-inc/

======
fliph
If one of AOL's goals was to announce multiple acquisitions in a single day in
order to get exponentially more coverage than if they had announced them all
days apart, then I'd say mission accomplished.

------
adityakothadiya
Wow! I was wondering what would happen to Brizzly after Twitter's new web
interface. Brizzly has nice interface for in-stream media and so. I thought
their key point was user interface. And I was thinking what would a startup
(client) do, whose core selling point is better UI, in case when a platform
itself comes up with a better UI.

I wonder how these acquisitions happen? Probably Brizzly knew they will die
soon? So they wanted to sell it off? And they have some connections with AOL
somehow, and get the word out that they are on sale? Any ideas?

~~~
izendejas
I use Brizzly on a daily basis, but I might switch to the "new" Twitter. And I
too wonder if they'll die off.

What I love that the new Twitter UI has: * infinite scroll * in-line media
(embedded videos/images)

Why I might not make the switch yet: * their mute feature (useful when
following someone who's tweeting way too much irrelevant stuff) * they crowd-
source explanation of trending topics (offers a quick way to find out what's
going on w/o doing a search)

~~~
praxxis
#newtwitter has a "hidden" way of muting people actually:
<http://praxx.is/post/1207623920/muting-users-in-newtwitter>

~~~
izendejas
thanks, good to know. i'm def. switching then... when i get it.

------
jbail
AOL doesn't want to die alone.

~~~
doyoulikeworms
"Everyone dies alone."

------
dkasper
In an interesting choice of words, the Thing Labs blog (blog.thinglabs.com)
refers to this as a "merger".

"We are pleased to announce that as of today, Thing Labs is merging with AOL.
This deal has been in the works for a little while, and we’ve been dying to
tell you all, but today it’s official!"

~~~
daveying99
Arrington also called Techcrunch's sale a merger at TC Disrupt this morning.

~~~
dkasper
Ah, is it normal for the acquirer to refer to it as an acquisition and the
acquired to refer to it as a merger?

------
scg
Does this complement or replace AOL SocialThing? (now AOL Lifestream) What do
you think is AOL's strategy?

[http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/14/confirmed-aol-acquires-
life...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/14/confirmed-aol-acquires-
lifestreaming-service-socialthing/)

------
kno
With their record of taking cool companies down the drain, I worry about this
AOL shopping spree.

~~~
IdeaHamster
Really? What cool companies are you referring to? I only know about AOL
acquisitions which have been reasonably successful.

------
jarin
I don't have much in the way of product, but AOL: you are more than welcome to
acquire Robot Mode.

