The startup firm that was launched in September 2011, is all about mobile content consumption, a sector Facebook considerably wants to improve on. And the social media giant is essentially cashing in on the company’s five employees, not its technology.
In a blog post, Spool co-founder and CEO Avichal Garg said the company developed “some very advanced technology” to power its app. “We firmly believe that solving these problems will be increasingly important as the world accesses the Internet primarily through mobile devices,” he wrote.
This appears like a pure talent acquisition, besides, it does not appear that any of the technology Spool built will be integrated into Facebook, and the company has already shut down its service. The service has never even made it out of beta. Users were sent an e-mail with all their bookmarks attached in a file called “bookmarks.html.”
The company advises its users to transfer their bookmarks to one of its competitors: Pocket or Delicious. If you are a Spool user, you would want to read this: Instructions for importing your bookmarks into another service.
In fact, the service was exceptionally unique since it could save all sorts of web content, including images and PDF files, and it also allowed you to push content easily to your friends.
The five member Spool team will be moving to work for the social media giant. Additional details including terms of acquisition were not revealed, but this appears to be mainly a talent acquisition; Facebook is not vying for the technology behind the service, or its user data.
Spool raised a $1 million round of venture capital this past January from a group including SVAngel, Felicis Ventures, Yuri Milner’s Start Fund and YouTube founder Steve Chen.
Facebook forwarded this statement about the deal:
“The Spool team has deep expertise in mobile software development and a passion for making content easy to consume. We are excited for the team to join and accelerate their vision at Facebook.”
Here is the blog post Spool co-founder Avichal Garg wrote announcing the move:
We started Spool to make content easy to consume on a mobile device. To accomplish this, we built some very sophisticated technology and developed a deep expertise in mobile software development. We firmly believe that solving these problems will be increasingly important as the world accesses the Internet primarily through mobile devices.
We are proud to announce that today we will be pursuing our vision as a part of Facebook. If you were a Spool user, please read the instructions on retaining your bookmarks.
We are extremely excited to accelerate our vision and help Facebook’s users connect and share with the people in their lives. We wouldn’t be in a position to have this sort of impact without our supporters and the Spool community. Please accept a heartfelt thank you for supporting us and for affording us this opportunity.
Sincerely, The Spool team