Movie focused social network Flixster acquired a popular iPhone application called Movies.app (iTunes link) last week, and has re-released the application this evening. As far as we know, this is the first acquisition of an iPhone app. The price isn’t being disclosed.
Movies.app was created by Jeffrey Grossman, a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon University. The application lets users find show times, watch trailers and get maps to local theaters and has been downloaded 250,000 times. Flixster has updated the app to give users full access to their database of 70,000 movies, so users will be able to look up older titles while at Blockbuster, etc. In the next version users will also be able to link their Flixter accounts to the application.
Grossman will join Flixster as an consultant while attending school. He just got a heck of a resume bump.
Flixster itself continues to do well. They’ve presumably recovered from the IAC acquisition train wreck that occurred a year ago (IAC reportedly walked away from a nearly closed deal). According to Comscore Flixster now has 6.5 million monthly visitors to its website and 13.6 million across its network (website plus Facebook and MySpace apps). They’re at about 250 million monthly page views if you include the Facebook/MySpace apps.
Damm. That’s a crap load of traffic!
Be gentle Arrington. Don’t flipme off or I’ll resend the crack pix:)
“Grossman will continue to work at Flixster while attending school” – is he an employee then and the application was purchased from an employee?
The post says:
“Grossman will join Flixster as an consultant while attending school.”
Were you quoting something else or was the post edited?
Otilia, I’m assuming by that they meant he was brought on along with the application acquisition, and will work there and attend school at the same time, not that he worked there previous to the acquisition.
right. I’ll make the language more clearer.
Good for him. CMU has one of the top CS programs in the country after all.
So how much do you think he got for his app?
Also the tab index on this form is off.
Whatever .We need more apps for Iphone .
Wasn’t Tap Tap Revolution acquired by Tapulous from the original developer?
Last.FM bought their iPhone software off a guy that didn’t work for them.
Buy a good established app as quick as possible. The leaders are establishing themselves fast in the app store.
in school and making money..sounds like good deal
schoolshift.com
a place where students can interact about college
michael arrington, how do you know how many times their app has been downloaded?
anybody know if this is the same jeffrey grossman from voltagenet during the free ipods days?
Nice. Go CMU!
Awesome work! Hope he got enough money for it. There is very little free time at CMU; guess he put it to good use
I guess that will give developers even more incentive to create killer iPhone apps. Works out for the iPhone users, and for the developers. That’s awesome!
Jake
NoteScribe: Premier Notes Software
My pet peeve about these kind of posts concerning acquisitions is that there’s always a critical piece of information missing… HOW did he sell it? Did he knock on the doors of every possible acquirer? Did he target just one acquirer and schmooze ‘em? Did the acquirer knock on his door? Did he have multiple offers to choose from? Did he retain the services of an agent to sell it for him? Did he list it for sale on E-bay? etc…
I just tried Flixster for the first time, and was quickly disappointed. I entered my zip code on the Movies in theaters page and it brought back a few theaters, but not the 2 that are cloest to my home. Pretty useless to me.
Now i feel that i wasted my college times. With an app, you take your future under warranty even though you are a sophomore…
How did he sell it? I am guessing with a $10 investment in a domain name and a website like http://www.movi...app.com/native/
Just guessing, I may be wrong… The website still has the “donate” button on it.
Another point in the free vs paid apps argument. Go the classic get rich with no business model and sell to a larger company. I wonder how many people will target new apps in order to sell them to larger companies now. Either way, good for him. More thoughts here:
http://techburn...ne-app-wonders/
Hmm, I’d be interested to know the acquisition price. It looks like a nice app, but building a data-driven iPhone web app doesn’t take THAT long. Then again I realize Movies.app is a native app, so maybe it’s too apples & oranges to compare the two.
Didn’t like flixster? Try this one http://www.filmcrave.com – you may find it more engaging.