This is why I could never be a tech start up investor. Every new app like this that I see, I dismiss as useless/nothing new/why would anyone use that. Then it gets bought by one of the big guys for millions a year later.
I always got the impression that Branch had a very talented team, but that the products were very over-engineered. By that, I mean that the interface was very polished, but also very confusing. So I'm sure it's a good deal for Facebook to add this very focused talent to their stable.
Makes sense, I love the Branch product but seems they never really got enough traction to make it a buzzing place of conversation & interaction. Will be interesting to see what happens with the product within FB.. will it be largely a talent acquisition or does FB really believe in what Josh and the team were building.
The Verge reports an acquisition price of around $15mm.<p><a href="http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/1/13/5303702/facebook-acquires-link-sharing-app-branch-for-15-million" rel="nofollow">http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/1/13/5303702/facebook-acquir...</a>
I just discovered Branch today, and I think the problem it tries to solve is one that hits me quite frequently. I consume content nonstop online, but I'm lacking a good medium to share content I like with friends <i>and</i> have semi-private conversations around it.<p>I like Pocket a lot for the first piece of that puzzle, but it lacks discussion capabilities. Facebook is my de facto solution for the second part, but it's not good for letting people bring in their friends who aren't my friends. So I suppose my dreams may come true if Facebook really is interested in letting the Branch team continue to pursue the problem.
The analogy Branch used in the earlier days of its launch (which isn't too long ago) was, in my words: consider Branch as a high school cafeteria, where each table has people of different taste and stripe discussing things.<p>So I guess the school was private after all and it got bought out by another private school.<p>You know, those students are eventually going to grow up and they're going to realize that private corporations are using (abusing?) their time and conversations to their own advantage.
Branch looks like a good app. In some way it is kind of similar to Pinterest. Would be interesting to find out why they didn't gain enough traction? Could it be because they weren't targeting a niche audience compared to Pinterest targeting niche users at the initial stages.