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Vizify acquired by Yahoo

73 points by dswiese 13y ago

Dakuan 13y ago
And there was me hoping that Vizify could magically transform any text into something that could have been out of Viz magazine.
noelwelsh 13y ago
A great result for Todd and team! Having worked with the people at Vizify I know they'll do some great stuff at Yahoo!
djyaz1200 13y ago
Congrats! Go PDX!
austinhutch 13y ago
I've had a Vizify profile for a while and have been underwhelmed with the product. I'd like to hear from someone who really likes it and/or gets value from it.
hydralist 13y ago
"Since last summer, we’ve been engaged in a conversation with some of the incredible folks at Yahoo about the ways this more visual approach to data can inspire and entertain. As our conversations progressed, we realized we’d found a partner who shared our passion for user experience, design, and visualizing information." This shit makes me cringe, such bullshit. They offered the right price, we wanted money. That is all
- snorkel 13y ago
  Congratulations on being acqui-hired by Yahoo! We have automated our acqui-hire process so please complete the following steps and then push the submit button. 1. Shutdown your service. 2. In the provided announcement template, you must replace [NAME OF COMPANY] with your company name, and after the words "shares our passion for" enter a [SHORT DESCRIPTION OF YOUR SERVICE] 3. Replace your current home page with the completed announcement template 4. Report to Yahoo! headquarters on 9:00AM Monday for Aqui-hire Orientation. Please refer to your acquisition confirmation id number [9342645] at the registration desk. Bring a photo id and recent immunization records.
  - hydralist 13y ago
    hahah, well done sir
cubes 13y ago
Congratulations Todd and team!
justinelof 13y ago
This is a great group of guys, congrats to the team. Startups a hard, very hard. They made a great product and worked on what they love, if they get to continue to work on what they love at Yahoo, more power to them. I just hope they are able to keep their scrappy and inquisitive style.
emilsundberg 13y ago
Sad to hear that their company and product failed. Did anyone use their paid service?
untog 13y ago
Sad. Another company failing and shutting down with its employees going to work at Yahoo. Sorry, I mean they got acqui-hired. EDIT: There are other comments saying that people are being unnecessarily negative. Maybe so. But this is a company with customers that is shutting down without a single apology to people that depend on their service. Overall, the post just feels like doublespeak, talking about "your transition" (to what?), and: "we realized we’d found a partner who shared our passion for user experience, design, and visualizing information." ...which is why they've told us to shut down all the work we've been doing for the last few years and start something different!
- jcampbell1 13y ago
  It is not sad at all. These guys are talented and have been working on a product that very few people are really going miss. Hopefully they are now going to be working on products and projects that people actually care about. Sad is when Napster shutdown.
- nedwin 13y ago
  Are you a customer of Vizify?
  - shakeel_mohamed 13y ago
    I am, and I'm also sad - just waiting for Vizify to have massive security flaws now.
yawgmoth 13y ago
There are only a handful of comments in this thread and they're already seething with vitriol. Can anyone give context? Or is this just general "Yahoo, blech," sentiment?
- minimaxir 13y ago
  There's a difference between celebrating an profitable 9-digit acquisition and celebrating a mercy buyout from a company fond of mercy buyouts. (per TechCrunch, Vizify's last raise was about $1.5M in its life with the last raise in 2012, and it's likely that their options were raise more money, get acquired, or die.)
- callahad 13y ago
  There's just general antipathy around acqui-hires. The team gets a nice payday, but existing customers get burned. I suspect that poisons the well for other startups as those customers become more cautious. I'm also generally uncomfortable with concentrating innovation within a small set of megacorps.
  - vijayr 13y ago
    Also, your data ends up with a megacorp, who you've been carefully avoiding in the past.
  - stephen 13y ago
    > The team gets a nice payday Part of my naive negative reaction to acqui-hires is that the investors/founders get more of a payday (not VC-dream 100x but I assume more than 1x) than the team really does (maybe some retention bonuses, minor bonuses from vested stock, etc.). This is basically not rewarding the investors for backing a great business idea, or the founders for great execution, but for being great recruiters. E.g. "yay, I'm/the team are awesome at my/our jobs, so my founders/investors get a huge 'referral bonus'...and I get to go work at Yahoo..." (Granted, if the acquirer only wants the founders anyway, and the rest of the engineering team is more of a tangential bonus, I guess it makes sense. Perhaps this is usually the case anyway? Not sure.)
jchonphoenix 13y ago
There's a surprising number of negative comments here. Have any of you ever started a company and been involved in an acquisition process from the front lines? If not, I'd suggest being a little more careful with your wording. Your statements come across as worse than naive--they come across as petty, with a tinge of idiocy. I'd just make sure I was more informed about these decisions/processes before making commentary on them.
- jeffcs 13y ago
  Haters gonna hate, but they clearly have no clue what they're talking about.
- droob 13y ago
  They're closing. It's nice for them, but bad for users.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
lloyddobbler 13y ago
I don't know any details of the transaction - but I'm very excited to see Yahoo picking up this team and their social data visualization tech. Yahoo seems to be testing its boundaries as a content provider in a lot of good ways.
AznHisoka 13y ago
I knew the name sounded familiar, and then I realized why. I've been to these sites listed in twitter profile bios and they all looked so spammy/useless/devoid of content when I visited them.
seshakiran 13y ago
Congratulations!
yeukhon 13y ago
What's the use of this? I would imagine Facebook's end of year review was a clone of Vizify's idea? Anyhow, how was this idea be profitable for this startup to stay alive? I have never heard of it to be honest. To me this looks like http://osrc.dfm.io/ http://osrc.dfm.io/ and FB's end-of-year review
bredren 13y ago
Our company is in the Portland Seed Fund portfolio also. We know Todd and his team and they are good people. They worked incredibly hard at building up Vizify. While it may be a bummer for users, I hope this is a positive step for the team and congratulate them on their effort! EDIT: It is worth mentioning that Vizify raised in the valley, but ran the company out of Portland. Only a few consumer internet companies have done this so far, but in each case it has brought a lot to the city by helping build out the startup ecosystem up there. It is way different running a consumer internet startup in Portland from the valley. We couldn't do it--we moved down to CA. More info and sentiment from Rick Turoczy, who is close to the Portland tribe: http://siliconflorist.com/2014/03/05/visualize-exit-portlands-vizify-acquired-yahoo/ http://siliconflorist.com/2014/03/05/visualize-exit-portland...
primitivesuave 13y ago
The negativity around acqui-hires is pretty ridiculous. Every single tech company pays for the ability to hire smart people, and the basis of the hiring process is centered around the quality of a candidate's resume. In this case, there is a group of smart people (Vizify) who have a very real accomplishment (Vizify), which trumps a fact-laden piece of paper any day.
- finnh 13y ago
  Ratio of "acquihire haters" to "haters who would turn down a well-priced acquisition offer on that basis" = ERROR DIV0 Funnily enough, I've actually walked from an acquisition before. But for a very different reason: BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T OFFER ENOUGH MONEY. That's it. Full stop. I am running a business, after all.
  - jtfrench 13y ago
    >> "Ratio of "acquihire haters" to "haters who would turn down a well-priced acquisition offer on that basis" = ERROR DIV0" You sir/ma'am, are hilarious.
mase 13y ago
Fuck the haters. Congrats to the team!
pibby_ 13y ago
As a Vizify user, I'm saddened that they will be shutting down. I really enjoyed their service and it served as a great "bio" website. Pleased for the designers and developers, though, they had great success, IMO, and I hope they will make their mark at Yahoo.
brianr 13y ago
Congrats to the Vizify team!
bertil 13y ago
I don’t understand: one comment (politely) regrets their closing their service; half are encouraging and short; therefore, why is the other half of the comments about how people are so negative about the whole thing?
mrmch 13y ago
Congrats to Todd and the team; this is a positive outcome.

73 points by dswiese 13y ago

And there was me hoping that Vizify could magically transform any text into something that could have been out of Viz magazine.

noelwelsh 13y ago

A great result for Todd and team! Having worked with the people at Vizify I know they'll do some great stuff at Yahoo!

djyaz1200 13y ago

Congrats! Go PDX!

austinhutch 13y ago

I've had a Vizify profile for a while and have been underwhelmed with the product. I'd like to hear from someone who really likes it and/or gets value from it.

hydralist 13y ago

"Since last summer, we’ve been engaged in a conversation with some of the incredible folks at Yahoo about the ways this more visual approach to data can inspire and entertain. As our conversations progressed, we realized we’d found a partner who shared our passion for user experience, design, and visualizing information." This shit makes me cringe, such bullshit. They offered the right price, we wanted money. That is all

snorkel 13y ago
Congratulations on being acqui-hired by Yahoo! We have automated our acqui-hire process so please complete the following steps and then push the submit button. 1. Shutdown your service. 2. In the provided announcement template, you must replace [NAME OF COMPANY] with your company name, and after the words "shares our passion for" enter a [SHORT DESCRIPTION OF YOUR SERVICE] 3. Replace your current home page with the completed announcement template 4. Report to Yahoo! headquarters on 9:00AM Monday for Aqui-hire Orientation. Please refer to your acquisition confirmation id number [9342645] at the registration desk. Bring a photo id and recent immunization records.
- hydralist 13y ago
  hahah, well done sir

cubes 13y ago

Congratulations Todd and team!

justinelof 13y ago

This is a great group of guys, congrats to the team. Startups a hard, very hard. They made a great product and worked on what they love, if they get to continue to work on what they love at Yahoo, more power to them. I just hope they are able to keep their scrappy and inquisitive style.

emilsundberg 13y ago

Sad to hear that their company and product failed. Did anyone use their paid service?

untog 13y ago

Sad. Another company failing and shutting down with its employees going to work at Yahoo. Sorry, I mean they got acqui-hired. EDIT: There are other comments saying that people are being unnecessarily negative. Maybe so. But this is a company with customers that is shutting down without a single apology to people that depend on their service. Overall, the post just feels like doublespeak, talking about "your transition" (to what?), and: "we realized we’d found a partner who shared our passion for user experience, design, and visualizing information." ...which is why they've told us to shut down all the work we've been doing for the last few years and start something different!

jcampbell1 13y ago
It is not sad at all. These guys are talented and have been working on a product that very few people are really going miss. Hopefully they are now going to be working on products and projects that people actually care about. Sad is when Napster shutdown.
nedwin 13y ago
Are you a customer of Vizify?
- shakeel_mohamed 13y ago
  I am, and I'm also sad - just waiting for Vizify to have massive security flaws now.

yawgmoth 13y ago

There are only a handful of comments in this thread and they're already seething with vitriol. Can anyone give context? Or is this just general "Yahoo, blech," sentiment?

minimaxir 13y ago
There's a difference between celebrating an profitable 9-digit acquisition and celebrating a mercy buyout from a company fond of mercy buyouts. (per TechCrunch, Vizify's last raise was about $1.5M in its life with the last raise in 2012, and it's likely that their options were raise more money, get acquired, or die.)
callahad 13y ago
There's just general antipathy around acqui-hires. The team gets a nice payday, but existing customers get burned. I suspect that poisons the well for other startups as those customers become more cautious. I'm also generally uncomfortable with concentrating innovation within a small set of megacorps.
- vijayr 13y ago
  Also, your data ends up with a megacorp, who you've been carefully avoiding in the past.
- stephen 13y ago
  > The team gets a nice payday Part of my naive negative reaction to acqui-hires is that the investors/founders get more of a payday (not VC-dream 100x but I assume more than 1x) than the team really does (maybe some retention bonuses, minor bonuses from vested stock, etc.). This is basically not rewarding the investors for backing a great business idea, or the founders for great execution, but for being great recruiters. E.g. "yay, I'm/the team are awesome at my/our jobs, so my founders/investors get a huge 'referral bonus'...and I get to go work at Yahoo..." (Granted, if the acquirer only wants the founders anyway, and the rest of the engineering team is more of a tangential bonus, I guess it makes sense. Perhaps this is usually the case anyway? Not sure.)

jchonphoenix 13y ago

There's a surprising number of negative comments here. Have any of you ever started a company and been involved in an acquisition process from the front lines? If not, I'd suggest being a little more careful with your wording. Your statements come across as worse than naive--they come across as petty, with a tinge of idiocy. I'd just make sure I was more informed about these decisions/processes before making commentary on them.

jeffcs 13y ago
Haters gonna hate, but they clearly have no clue what they're talking about.
droob 13y ago
They're closing. It's nice for them, but bad for users.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

lloyddobbler 13y ago

I don't know any details of the transaction - but I'm very excited to see Yahoo picking up this team and their social data visualization tech. Yahoo seems to be testing its boundaries as a content provider in a lot of good ways.

AznHisoka 13y ago

I knew the name sounded familiar, and then I realized why. I've been to these sites listed in twitter profile bios and they all looked so spammy/useless/devoid of content when I visited them.

seshakiran 13y ago

Congratulations!

yeukhon 13y ago

What's the use of this? I would imagine Facebook's end of year review was a clone of Vizify's idea? Anyhow, how was this idea be profitable for this startup to stay alive? I have never heard of it to be honest. To me this looks like http://osrc.dfm.io/ http://osrc.dfm.io/ and FB's end-of-year review

bredren 13y ago

Our company is in the Portland Seed Fund portfolio also. We know Todd and his team and they are good people. They worked incredibly hard at building up Vizify. While it may be a bummer for users, I hope this is a positive step for the team and congratulate them on their effort! EDIT: It is worth mentioning that Vizify raised in the valley, but ran the company out of Portland. Only a few consumer internet companies have done this so far, but in each case it has brought a lot to the city by helping build out the startup ecosystem up there. It is way different running a consumer internet startup in Portland from the valley. We couldn't do it--we moved down to CA. More info and sentiment from Rick Turoczy, who is close to the Portland tribe: http://siliconflorist.com/2014/03/05/visualize-exit-portlands-vizify-acquired-yahoo/ http://siliconflorist.com/2014/03/05/visualize-exit-portland...

primitivesuave 13y ago

The negativity around acqui-hires is pretty ridiculous. Every single tech company pays for the ability to hire smart people, and the basis of the hiring process is centered around the quality of a candidate's resume. In this case, there is a group of smart people (Vizify) who have a very real accomplishment (Vizify), which trumps a fact-laden piece of paper any day.

finnh 13y ago
Ratio of "acquihire haters" to "haters who would turn down a well-priced acquisition offer on that basis" = ERROR DIV0 Funnily enough, I've actually walked from an acquisition before. But for a very different reason: BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T OFFER ENOUGH MONEY. That's it. Full stop. I am running a business, after all.
- jtfrench 13y ago
  >> "Ratio of "acquihire haters" to "haters who would turn down a well-priced acquisition offer on that basis" = ERROR DIV0" You sir/ma'am, are hilarious.

mase 13y ago

Fuck the haters. Congrats to the team!

pibby_ 13y ago

As a Vizify user, I'm saddened that they will be shutting down. I really enjoyed their service and it served as a great "bio" website. Pleased for the designers and developers, though, they had great success, IMO, and I hope they will make their mark at Yahoo.

brianr 13y ago

Congrats to the Vizify team!

bertil 13y ago

I don’t understand: one comment (politely) regrets their closing their service; half are encouraging and short; therefore, why is the other half of the comments about how people are so negative about the whole thing?

mrmch 13y ago

Congrats to Todd and the team; this is a positive outcome.