Facebook has acquired Nextstop, a global recommendations Website sustained by user-generated content. The site will close Sept. 1, but offers users ways to export their content.
Nextstop has been acquired by Facebook, Nextstop announced in an open letter
on the home page. What this means, the company explained, is that it will be
"joining" Facebook, which it says has bought most of its assets.
A recommendations site on what to do and see around the world, consisting of
user-generated content, Nextstop will shutter its doors Sept. 1. Until then,
current members can continue to use the site, but no new members will be
allowed.
The 2-year-old company describes its mission as making it "dramatically
easier to discover great things to do anywhere in the world." The decision
to team up with Facebook, Nextstop said in its letter, will further this end.
"We believe it's an opportunity for some of the ideas behind Nextstop
to reach Facebook's audience of more than 400 million users and have a much
bigger impact on the world than we could on our own," the company said.
Before Sept. 1, Nextstop members can export their personal contributions to
Picasa Web Albums or Google Maps, or download PDF or HTML files of guides
they've created on the site. And in keeping with the site's
by-the-people-for-the-people sensibility, Nextstop said it will be releasing an exportable database
under a Creative Commons license of all the recommendations and places on the
site.
"Our aim is [to] make it possible for other products-whether they
already exist or are yet to be created-to harness the collective knowledge of
the Nextstop community, which includes information on nearly 100,000
recommendations for places around the world," the letter said.
Nextstop execs made no mention of the figures involved in the deal, but
expressed gratitude to the company's members for their enthusiasm and openness.
"We've been amazed and delighted by your enthusiasm for this
project," they wrote, "and it's strengthened our conviction that
information from friends and passionate locals is a much better way to discover
the world around you."
Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.
Email
Print
