You may’ve heard that Yahoo has acquired maker of the popular task/list management app, Astrid. Alongside the announcement, Astrid also said that premium offering will no longer be available and refunds will be made to those who paid for the service. The change is in the air, but what will Yahoo do with Astrid?
One would think they will leave it as a separate (and profitable) company while using its brand to bring more users to the service. That, apparently, won’t be the case. I would have to guess they’ll re-launch it under some new name — like Yahoo! Tasks or Yahoo! Lists — and offer it free of charge. Heck, I imagine they’ll turn it into a Google-like service that offers a ton of features for free, while making some things available for premium users, only.
Then again, Yahoo isn’t Google despite having a former Google exec at the top. So it’s inevitable to ask – will Yahoo ruin Astrid?
I do realize Yahoo is more of a media company than service provider but that doesn’t mean they don’t offer premium services. The way I see it, the ad business is more prone to cyclic moves in the economy whereas selling services is more constant source of revenue. To that end, I want to believe that Astrid (or whatever Yahoo! ends up calling it) will remain a freemium app/service that will keep its easy-to-use feature set.
What do you think Yahoo will do with Astrid? Does existing Astrid users have something good to look forward to?