

Yahoo acquires Ptch - bonchibuji
http://blog.ptch.com/post/68919650988/ptch-joins-yahoo

======
aaronbrethorst
I am so tired of the upbeat acquihire 'hey, users, this is good for you!'
spin.

    
    
        Our passion and our mission was to give you
        the best way to make and share beautiful movies
        made from the photos and videos on your phone.
        Well, someone noticed!
    
        ...Ptch will shut down on January 2, 2014

~~~
jmathai
If it _is_ an acqui-hire, then think of the scenario. A team that's probably
burned out. The passion probably died a while back and along with it went the
mission.

What type of announcement do you expect?

    
    
      We appreciate that you signed up for and used our product. 
      Things haven't gone as well as we had hoped and we're 
      exhausted.   The truth is we'd be shutting down the site 
      in due time anyway but this is a better option for us and
      doesn't make any real difference for you, our user.
    

It says they launched a year ago so this particular company was still very
new. It may not apply to them but I imagine this applies to most acqui-hires.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Ideally an honest one.

Edit: here's a thought.

Thanks again for your support of Product since our launch. It means the world
to us, and it's been a terrific ride for us. Unfortunately, we haven't seen
the broad usage of our service necessary to sustain it and we'll be shutting
it down in X months. Luckily, BigCo is acquiring our team, which means that
we'll have jobs making their quasi-similar product even better.

Here's how you get your data: (blah)

Here are some similar services you may want to consider moving to: (blah)

~~~
anoncowherd
You want honesty?

How about:

 _" Thanks again for your support of Product since our launch. It means we're
now in a position to get acquired by Yahoo. In other words, your support means
we get money. We could gush about how much you mean to us, but really, we're
running a business here, with the explicit goal of making money. We've done
that now, so, thanks!"_

~~~
aaronbrethorst

        After the liquidation preference the founders
        (probably 1-3 people) are likely to get 90%
        of the remaining proceeds and the staff –
        those engineers that the acquiring company
        so desperately wants – would ordinarily
        receive a very small proportion.
    

[http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/05/13/the-
corrosive-...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/05/13/the-corrosive-
downside-of-acquihires/)

Hopefully Ptch employees were making market wages, because an acquihire
certainly won't net them much of anything.

------
gregcohn
Ptch was incubated at Dreamworks and was a pretty high-profile project
internally there. As another commenter noted, it was something along the lines
of an instagram video type of app, with very notable enhancements (think the
equivalent of instagram filters, powered by dreamworks technology and
content).

It was publicly available in the iOS App Store but didn't get much traction.
I'm not sure what's left of the team, as I believe all of the original mobile
engineers were already poached.

------
ulfw
Next: Yahoo! acquires an extra vowel for it's businesses

~~~
001sky
I'd like to but a vowel for $100MM, please...

------
junto
Rule 1 when announcing your imminent acqui-hiredness: tell us what your
company did when making your announcement, otherwise it is just gloating.

Can anyone tell me what ptch actually did?

~~~
swang
The first paragraph says:

"Our passion and our mission was to give you the best way to make and share
beautiful movies made from the photos and videos on your phone."

------
Hovertruck
How do you pronounce the name of this company? Patch? Pitch?

~~~
codegeek
Their homepage says

"Make a ptch (pronounced "pitch") by combining the photos and videos on your
phone, or using media from your social networks, like Facebook or Instagram.

Personalize it by easily adding captions, music, and effects."

------
wangweij
Ask the users to download the data? Since they are about photos and videos,
why not simply say "if you can provide us your Yahoo account, we will move all
your data to Flickr in a private photo set"?

~~~
spader725
You're assuming everyone has a Yahoo Account, and they like using Flickr

------
chadwickthebold
Does anyone have any idea how this fits into Yahoo's overall strategy?

~~~
3am
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2013/11/26...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2013/11/26/katie-couric-david-pogue-and-why-yahoo-wants-more-video-
content/), Marissa Mayer has made several statements about not having enough
clip inventory for all of the ad inventory they have. User generated content
is cheap... I have no idea if it's that, technology, acqui-hired, or what,
though.

~~~
loceng
Interesting. Thanks for sharing

