Pinterest acquires 2 startups, 71Squared takes over 2 Realmac apps
Today has seen the announcement of separate acquisitions made by the virtual bookmarking company Pinterest and the Mac development studio 71Squared, with each acquisition going toward the purchase of two valued entities.
Pinterest pins The Hunt and Pext
In the case of Pinterest, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, it has acquired “two startups that could help bolster the company’s ability to show users images, or ‘pins,’ they might like.”
Perhaps the most pertinent of the newly acquired startups is the community-powered shopping service The Hunt. Essentially, The Hunt lets users post photos of products they covet so that other users could then help in finding it or similar items for purchase.
The Hunt looks to be well-suited to Pinterest’s function as a virtual shopping catalog, with so-called Buyable Pins that allow users to purchase items right within Pinterest.
As a result of its acquisition by Pinterest, though, The Hunt will be shut down early next year.
The other startup recently bought by Pinterest is the text- and image-based meme creation app Pext. It’s since been removed from the App Store, but Pext enabled users to turn text into memes by automatically suggesting images that matched the text as it’s typed by users.
Pext is more of an “acqui-hire,” though, with Pext cofounder Harsh Goel joining Pinterest. Goel is a former Google employee who specializes in image indexing and advertising technology, something that could be of great use to Pinterest.
71Squared squares up with Typed and Deep Dreamer
As for 71Squared, it has announced in an email to its customers that it has taken over the development of the writing app Typed and the image-processing app Deep Dreamer from Realmac Software, which has decided to focus on Typed.com. Rapid Weaver, and Clear.
“Having been regular users of Typed and heavily involved in the development of Deep Dreamer,” 71Squared says, “taking on these products felt like a natural progression and would allow us to add some exciting new features we knew everyone would love.”
As a result, Typed has been renamed Focused, so as not to be confused with Realmac’s Typed.com blogging platform. And along with the name change comes a new version called Focused available to download from the Mac App Store or directly from 71Squared’s website.
Deep Dreamer is also available via direct download from the developer’s site.
If you’ve purchased Typed or Deep Dreamer from Realmac, don’t worry. You can continue using them under 71Squared by visiting the developer’s license page and using the same email address you used in purchasing the apps to receive your new activation keys.
