Tricks Window Technology Zone – Complete Technology Package for Technology News, Web Tricks, Blogging Tricks, SEO, Hacks, Network, Mobile Tricks, Android, Smartphones etc.
Are you a Blink user? For those who need an introduction to this self-destructing messaging app – it lets the sender of messages set a time upon which the sent messages will self-delete! Sounds interesting, isn’t it? But the bad news is Blink has been acquired by Yahoo and is all set to shut down in a few weeks.
The Blink team will group itself into Yahoo’s “smart communication” products. The deal with Yahoo has been officially announced on the app’s website, which says.
“We built Blink because we believe everyone should be free to show the same honesty and spontaneity in their online conversations as they can in person… We look forward to the possibilities that will come from bringing the Blink vision to Yahoo.”
In the context of Yahoo’s acquisition of the private messaging app Blink, it is evident that private messaging industry is booming with recent growth in the number of private messaging apps like Snapchat, Chadder, and Wickr. All these apps prevent unwanted people to see private and confidential messages.
Yahoo’s Acquisition of Blink
The app development company behind Blink, Meh Labs has already announced the discontinuance of the app through a post in their blog. But Yahoo still has not announced any plans for incorporating Blink’s technology or the people behind the app development.
However, going by the statistics, Yahoo has the highest number of tech company acquisitions to its name. Yahoo has acquired around 22 companies including Alike, GoPollGo, Milewise, and Jybe. All these companies shut down after the acquisition while there are companies like Tumblr and Astrid that still lives on. It seems Yahoo is on a buying streak! Probably the company is trying to intensify its presence in the tablet and smartphone market.
A few words about Blink and its technology
Blink – the self-destructing messaging app is a product of the mobile app development company by Michelle Norgan and Kevin Stephens. The start-up company was focused on a now-less-known location-based service called Kismet.
This app grew in popularity around 2012 and had to face competition from apps like Banjo and Highlight. As Kismet failed to gain the expected popularity and reputation, the developer company shifted to the private messaging app Blink. Thus, it moved towards a new mobile trend.
With Blink the users are able to text and share pictures, videos, voices, and more. While sharing, senders can control the visibility of the messages by setting a time. Thus, the sent items will be visible to the receivers only for a set period of time, after which those will be automatically deleted.
Blink announced its launch in Android and iOS only last year and till date has acquired download of 100,000. Although most Blink fans were from USA, the app succeeded in gaining popularity around Middle East. The app had plans to cater to the Arabic markets with localization in the language.
It also hinted at introduction of pro features to their second largest market. On the news of acquisition by Yahoo, it is speculated that the reason behind the acquisition to be the concept and talent behind than the app itself as a similar app SnapChat is far more popular than Blink.
It is heard that Yahoo is hesitant to call anything like this deal an “acquisition”. They probably got burned by the idea that they have to buy companies to get talents and investors.
