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<\/div>\nT<\/span>here<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>are a few tools that many stream<\/span>ing pros have used through the years,\u00a0<\/span>from W<\/span>e<\/span>Transfer to Brightcove to Vimeo.\u00a0<\/span>Some are essential to content creation, OTT\u00a0<\/span><\/span>delivery, and live streaming.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>All of<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>these tools\u00a0<\/span><\/span>have one important thing in common now:\u00a0<\/span><\/span>their recent acquisition by the Italian compa<\/span>ny Bending Spoons<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n What does it mean to be acquired? One the one hand, after Bending Spoons acquired We\u00adTransfer<\/a>, it cut staff by 75%. On the other hand, Brightcove shares were up 34% after acquisition<\/a>, and consolidation of complementary systems can benefit overall workflows.<\/p>\n In addition to these streaming-specific acquisitions, Bending Spoons has acquired Komoot<\/a>, a platform for planning customized vacations. It also snapped up Issuu, a \u201cdigital publishing and discovery platform\u201d that has a tool called Clip, which takes a snapshot of an online publication for sharing on social media. The list also includes MileIQ, which makes mileage-tracking software, and Evernote, which keeps track of notes and ideas. In addition, Bending Spoons acquired Remini in 2021 and Meetup in 2024. And here\u2019s the whopper: Yahoo is said to be near a deal to sell the media brand and portal AOL to Bending Spoons. AOL itself owns LifeLock, LastPass, and McAfee, among other assets. I have to ask: What does this all have to do with media management and OTT distribution tools?<\/p>\n Are the tools that we producers use in our everyday work being entrusted to a company that understands our needs and goals? Per its own website, Bending Spoons is a technology company that \u201cowns and operates leading digital products.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span>This is quite a different mission statement\u00a0<\/span><\/span>from, say, the one from Videndum (formerly The Vitec Group)<\/a>, which owns more than nearly 2 dozen companies involved in the production space and considers itself \u201ca leading global provider of premium branded hardware products and software solutions to the growing content creation market.”\u00a0That\u2019s on point, and all of the companies Videndum owns are in that channel. It makes sense.<\/p>\n If Videndum had suddenly acquired Fitbit, Linked\u00adIn, or GasBuddy, you\u2019d probably wonder what the heck is going on.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>But it hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n As someone who has used WeTransfer, Bright\u00adcove, and Vimeo, I find it unsettling to see them sit alongside mileage-tracking and (checks notes) customized vacation planning. Hacker\u00a0<\/span><\/span>News notes that Bending Spoons laid off more than 85% of the Brightcove staff<\/a>. Vimeo was not hit as hard<\/a>, laying off only 10% of staff in early September 2025.<\/p>\n Reports talk about making these companies \u201cleaner\u201d and \u201cmore commercial.\u201d Does this al\u00adso mean that costs will go up? Will the features these tools and services have be cut? Will investments in these companies also be trimmed? It\u2019s really hard to know what the future holds because Bending Spoons has not made any announcements about its plans for these acquisitions to make its intentions clearer.<\/p>\n But if the consolidation at the top of the studios is any indication, with the recent merger of\u00a0<\/span>Skydance and Paramount<\/a>, Amazon acquiring MGM<\/a>, and Netflix and Paramount Skydance going after Warner Bros. Discovery, maybe The Mandalorian\u2019s motto applies: \u201cThis is the way.\u201d I don\u2019t know why these companies feel the need to constantly merge and acquire, but that seems to be the rule of the day. What does it mean for producers who rely on these tools, especially when the company acquiring them does not have a production focus like Videndum?<\/p>\n For me, it means that I\u2019ll be wary. I\u2019ll keep my Vimeo account, but I\u2019ll also start looking at other solutions that can perform similar tasks in case Bending Spoons decides to morph Vimeo into something else \u201cmore commercial\u201d that breaks or eliminates the functionality I need.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t know what the future holds, but as with climate change breaking up the Arctic ice we used to know as one big mass, tectonic shifts are happening, and there\u2019s no going back. We need to keep our eyes and ears open so we can understand what\u2019s going on, make adjustments in advance, and not be caught unaware.<\/p>\n![\"Streaming](\"https:\/\/dzceab466r34n.cloudfront.net\/Images\/SiteImages\/168775-2025-Cover-Images---April-2025-ORG.png\")
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