I bought Brizzly back from Aol/Oath. For now, I figured we could all take a deep breath and remember the good times we’ve had on social media without making things worse. Silly? Maybe, but one day there will be more t-shirts depicting everyone’s favorite internet bear or even a new service.
Brizzly was launched by Thing Labs in 2009. Thing Labs was a group of (mostly) Google Reader veterans with visions of a new “social media reader”. Brizzly became a popular way for Twitter and Facebook users to view their timelines with pioneering features such as in-line photos and videos, threaded direct messages, URL shortening, lists, a guide to trends with explanations, group chats and more. The Brizzly branding was described by, then Techcrunch writer, M.G. Siegler as “…a killer logo of what looks to be a bear wearing a dead Twitter bird’s skin”. No birds were actually harmed.
It was great fun but we sold the company in September 2010 to join Aol in their efforts to revitalize AIM. Brizzly was shuttered in the spring of 2012 after AIM became reprioritized inside of Aol.
posted by Jason Shellen
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