Yahoo! acquires Konfabulator
What will this mean for DesktopX?
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/mc/20050725/tc_mc/yahooacquireskonfabulator
from 
WinCustomize Forums
WinCustomize Forums
It's big news. Looks like Yahoo has decided to take a position in the widget market, and it's doing it in a big way, by giving away Konfabulator. No doubt they intend to use it as a tool to cement their web presence:
Yahoo is counting on the widgets to make users more curious about certain topics, services or events, ultimately driving more traffic to its Web site so it can serve up more moneymaking ads and expand its current base of 10.1 million subscribers who pay for premium services, Schneider said.
But what will this mean for DesktopX, and similar products? Heck, what will it mean for Konfabulator? This sort of change often means interesting goings-on in the near future . . . and for the long-term.
Of course, similar transactions have happened before. Some of you may remember eFX from a long, long time ago. It used to be a competitor to WindowBlinds, and was quite highly regarded at the time, but it never got beyond 0.40 because it was bought up by a company, and disappeared without trace after that. Then there was the story of the rise and slow decline of Winamp, bought by AOL. But perhaps it will be different this time.
Will Yahoo do any better with Konfabulator? Or will this be another example of a popular application bought by a huge corporation and then crushed by it? Can Arlo and his team keep cranking out the widgets? I guess we'll have to see . . .
At least now the picture on the front of the Konfabulator website makes sense.
Yahoo is counting on the widgets to make users more curious about certain topics, services or events, ultimately driving more traffic to its Web site so it can serve up more moneymaking ads and expand its current base of 10.1 million subscribers who pay for premium services, Schneider said.
But what will this mean for DesktopX, and similar products? Heck, what will it mean for Konfabulator? This sort of change often means interesting goings-on in the near future . . . and for the long-term.
Of course, similar transactions have happened before. Some of you may remember eFX from a long, long time ago. It used to be a competitor to WindowBlinds, and was quite highly regarded at the time, but it never got beyond 0.40 because it was bought up by a company, and disappeared without trace after that. Then there was the story of the rise and slow decline of Winamp, bought by AOL. But perhaps it will be different this time.
Will Yahoo do any better with Konfabulator? Or will this be another example of a popular application bought by a huge corporation and then crushed by it? Can Arlo and his team keep cranking out the widgets? I guess we'll have to see . . .
At least now the picture on the front of the Konfabulator website makes sense.
