TapEngage (YC S11) acquired by Dropbox
blog.tapengage.com(I noticed that this was posted by Sean)
Congrats to Sean! For people that aren't aware, for a long time, Sean was the lone product manager on Google App Engine, and he played a significant role in helping that product scale.
Interesting acquisition.
Perhaps Dropbox is moving more in the media center direction with their mobile apps, which are currently rather bland lists of folders and files. I could see them creating a much more interactive mobile interface to access your data and embedding ads throughout. I'd hate for them to go the way of online video and force you to watch an ad to open a file.
I'm not sure how you get that - I assumed this was a fairly conventional Aquirhire.
Having said that....
SugarSync has a deal with Samsung where you can keep your files in SugarSync and play them on (some) Samsung Smart TVs. Seems like a win/win - SugarSync gets distribution and Samsung gets a nice feature.
Dropbox is already playing a similar space with its deals to get on Android phones.
I'm curious. Are there any other cases where one YC company has acquired another? Is this the first?
Certainly not the first. I remembered there's Loopt acquiring GraffitiGeo but I'm sure there's more: http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/20/mobile-social-network-wars-...
From YC's first class, Reddit either acquired or merged with infogami (depending on who you read it from). http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20239
Here's another example: http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/23/posterous-acquires-fellow-y...
Congrats Sean and Matt!
Is Dropbox getting into ad-supported models?
Was this in acquihire or is Dropbox intending to get into the tablet ad network game (http://www.tapengage.com/about)?
Is there a link between tablet-ads and dropbox? Sounds like a talent acquisition mmh?
Relevant ads based on your Dropbox contents? Interested in the motive here.
Seems more like a pivot into an ad supported revenue stream.