看到这个消息真是非常震惊,Xmarks是最好的书签同步服务,没有之一:
它完美支持IE/Firefox/Chrome;
支持不同的浏览器使用不同的profile;
支持将书签回滚恢复为历史上某一时刻。
Xmarks的官方博客
http://blog.xmarks.com/?p=1886
宣布了这一消息,他们将在2011年1月10日结束服务,并且提供了一些替代的服务列表:
http://www.xmarks.com/about/shutdown
这些一个都没有Xmarks好用,尤其是Chrome的书签同步,没事就给我丢掉大量的书签,或是凭空复制出一堆来。
关停的原因,主要是资金不足,由于现在用户有免费的替代选择,也没有人愿意为这个服务付费,其他的尝试也没有结果:
By Spring 2010, with money running tight and options fading, we started searching for potential buyers of the company. Over the past three months, we have been remarkably close to striking a deal, only to have the potential buyer get cold feet. We also considered refocusing Xmarks as a freemium sync business, but the prospects there are grim too: with the emergence of competent sync features built in to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, it's hard to see users paying for a service that they can now get for free. For four years we have offered the synchronization service for no charge, predicated on the hypothesis that a business model would emerge to support the free service. With that investment thesis thwarted, there is no way to pay expenses, primarily salary and hosting costs. Without the resources to keep the service going, we must shut it down. Our plan is to keep the service running for another 90+ days, after which the plug will be pulled.
毕竟是用了很多年的服务,看到the plug will be pulled真是有点恋恋不舍,Xmarks做的真是太好了。还记得2009年10月,Xmarks被墙,想各种方法使用这一服务:
http://tonysh-thu.blogspot.com/2009/10/gappproxyxmarks.html
如果需要付一定的费用使用,我想我会付费的。
似乎Xmarks曾经尝试向分享类服务(如Stumble)的转型也没有成功。如今,一切都结束了。
Bye Xmarks,悲剧的是你开始就选择了一条这样的路,一条很难看到收益的道路。
11.08.09后记:在2010年12月,XMarks宣布被一个密码管理的公司LastPass收购得以继续运营:
http://blog.xmarks.com/2010/12/lastpass-acquires-xmarks_3493.html
之后在保持XMarks浏览器插件免费的前提下,陆续开发了手机上的同步软件作为增值业务,希望XMarks能一路顺利。
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