Spool today issued a statement saying its innovative bookmarking service is shutting down.
In an email, the Spool team says:
“It’s been a pleasure to build Spool for you and we’ve been flattered with the overwhelmingly positive feedback we’ve received. However, after careful consideration, we’ve decided to pursue our vision in a new way.”
Spool was kind enough to attach all a user’s bookmarks to the email and provided a handy link to explain how they could import them into their browser or alternative service.
Spool launched in private beta in 2011 and stood out because it made videos available to watch later offline, not just articles and text.
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I still hope we’ll see competitors like Pocket, Instapaper and Readability provide offline viewing of videos soon, it’s the one significant feature that not one provides. Unfortunately, however, it seems it’s currently against YouTube’s terms & conditions to download videos which may very well be where Spool ran into problems.
In a blog post, Spool’s founders, Avichal Garg and Curtis Spencer, say they’ll be announcing their “post-Spool plan”s soon.
Spool raised $1 million in January of this year from SVAngel, Charles River Ventures and others, these funds will presumable be available and will be used for Spool’s post-Spool plans. Update – see foot of post.
Both co-founders have an impressive pedigrees, having worked at the likes of Google, Oracle, Amazon and Kosmix, so I have no doubt we’ll see their names on The Next Web again before long.
Update:
Facebook has issued a statement saying the team will be joining the company.
“The Spool team has deep expertise in mobile software development and a passion for making content easy to consume. We’re excited for the team to join and accelerate their vision at Facebook.”
Facebook’s mobile blitz continues.
Image Credit / TechCrunch
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