Posted in Appeal, News | 17 Comments »
TinyGrab was always designed to help the community. Today we’re asking the community to help us.
As you may or may not have been aware, TinyGrab recently entered into agreement with an advertising business named Zero Two Productions: an agreement involving the difficult decision to bring adverts onto TinyGrab, but one that would guarantee the security of TinyGrab for many months, if not years. We did not enter into this agreement lightly, and although Zero Two Studios was a small business, so is TinyGrab and the community of small internet businesses is the community we want to associate ourselves with.
Despite adverts being on our website for almost a fortnight, a bank transfer of promised payment for this advertising never reached our account. We were told yesterday that Zero Two Studios’ parent company was to be liquidated, and its owner to be declared bankrupt. Whether this is the case or not, we will have to see, and in the interests of future legal action we are considering against the company and its owner, it is perhaps not wise to comment further at this point. The gist is this. We have been let down, and in the process, we have let our customers down. For the slow image loading, the problems with embedded images and of course the adverts being there for nothing, everyone at TinyGrab would like to take this opportunity to humbly apologise for how things have turned out.
What we don’t apologise for, however, is our dream. All we wanted was to bring social screenshot sharing to the community and from the praise and comments we receive from you, we believe and hope you share our dream. TinyGrab is nevertheless a business. As much as we would like to, neither Chris nor I can afford to pump hundreds of pounds into TinyGrab every month with no visible sign of return. We wish that we could, but we can’t. This is why we are extending our hand to you, the hundreds of thousands of loyal TinyGrab users. It is no exaggeration to say that without your support, we will have no option but to suspend TinyGrab’s operations within the next two months – killing the dream, and letting you down more than we have already.
We’re basically asking for donations. If you love the product, as we know so many of you do, please demonstrate this love with a small donation to keep the program in business. Our friends at MacHeist have helped us enormously in the short-term, a deal for which we are eternally grateful. For the 300,000 of you who were lucky enough to get a free Premium account through MacHeist, it is you to whom we turn. If just 1% of our MacHeist customers donate just £2 ($3), this would keep TinyGrab afloat for almost another year. And that’s just 1% of you, for the price of a beer. Think what we could all do as a community. In a ceremonial offer, Chris and I have already thrown £2 into the pot: we’re as much reliant on TinyGrab as a fantastic program as you are. To donate, just click the Donate button at the bottom of this post, in the sidebar or on our home page at http://tinygrab.com.
The future of TinyGrab could be great for us all. TinyGrab 2.0 is ready and waiting, the iPhone app is on the cusp of launch, and a fresh new website is in planning; all of which will hopefully entice new customers and let TinyGrab pay for itself. We’ve shared our images, we’ve shared our lives. Now let’s share what we have to keep TinyGrab, and the dream, alive.
Nick Cooper
Partner in TinyGrab.
