JustThrive.com Acquired by Tree.com group
So, I got an email today, as a faithful - though bitter subscriber to JustThrive.com letting me know that they had been acquired by Tree.com. They write this nice letter telling me how Thrive is still "thrive" and how nothing is going to change etc etc.
Do they expect me to believe that bullsh*t? I can't believe that Tree would acquire Thrive for no alterior motive other than to just be nice. No, Tree wants to make money. LendingTree, RealEstate.com Etc are all there to make money. They are not there to just sit and do nothing and look nice. To be honest, I'm not really sure why they would acquire Thrive other than to joint advertise with their other site, and get people to pay them more money. Let's be realistic this is a business.
So please, JustThrive.com do not give me more bullsh*t - I've gotten enough out of you already. You're below my expectations, and your canned response to getting acquired is just as expected.
I expect that by 2010 there will be significantly more ads and more ways for Thrive to generate revenue, I expect them to somehow roll in points to their outsites, and generally make it feel as if Thrive is just there to try to take your money instead of manage it. That's my expectation based on my interaction with JustThrive so far.
Oh BTW, it would be great if you got a UI Engineer so that your site could be easier to use. Because whichever designer came up with the current concept, let me tell you as a frequent internet and software user, the design is something I would have expected out of a 1990's CRM, not a 2009 company. Where are your web 2.0 people?
Do they expect me to believe that bullsh*t? I can't believe that Tree would acquire Thrive for no alterior motive other than to just be nice. No, Tree wants to make money. LendingTree, RealEstate.com Etc are all there to make money. They are not there to just sit and do nothing and look nice. To be honest, I'm not really sure why they would acquire Thrive other than to joint advertise with their other site, and get people to pay them more money. Let's be realistic this is a business.
So please, JustThrive.com do not give me more bullsh*t - I've gotten enough out of you already. You're below my expectations, and your canned response to getting acquired is just as expected.
I expect that by 2010 there will be significantly more ads and more ways for Thrive to generate revenue, I expect them to somehow roll in points to their outsites, and generally make it feel as if Thrive is just there to try to take your money instead of manage it. That's my expectation based on my interaction with JustThrive so far.
Oh BTW, it would be great if you got a UI Engineer so that your site could be easier to use. Because whichever designer came up with the current concept, let me tell you as a frequent internet and software user, the design is something I would have expected out of a 1990's CRM, not a 2009 company. Where are your web 2.0 people?
Comments
We would not have sold to Tree.com if we were not entirely convinced that they were more on the user-centered side. Do they want to make money and survive, so that they can be there when times are tough? Absolutely. But they are working hard, every day, to find ways to improve each of the Tree.com family to make things better for people and we're excited about the opportunity to help in that.
I'm sorry you felt our response was canned. Avi and Ori actually spent days working over that thing, trying to communicate exactly what was happening, what would be changing, and what wouldn't. We realize that people trust us with information that is valuable to them, and we felt it was important to include them in our reasoning.
While our users are generally overwhelmingly happy with our UI, we are currently advertising for an IA to help improve some of the interactions within the site that we'd like to make better. That is one of the benefits of coming under LendingTree: we now the ability to ramp up our resources to do things better and faster. Know anyone good? Shoot an e-mail at matt@justthrive.com and I'll add them to the list of people to talk to.