Convio and GetActive Followup

I think this is a big enough for a two day story. There are tons of stories all across the map. However I have a different take on the “why?”

I guess I should do some disclosure here Silas Partners works with Convio, and Kintera, among a few other platforms. We are not a reseller and take no commissions from any vendors. I have visited the Convio offices in Austin they have a pool table which I thought was cool.

From Convio’s press release and from what I’ve read online of GetActive’s communication the only parts of the GetActive platform that will survive are the Content Management System (CMS) and Advocacy tool. The CMS surprised me because Convio is in the process of rolling out a significant revision to their PageBuilder product, which is the heart of their CMS offering. It seems odd that they would spend the time building an upgrade, if they knew it was going to be supplanted by the GetActive software.

Now I understand the acquisition conversations were happening at a high level, but someone on the development side had to be included, why didn’t the prioritize another enhancement?

This reinforces my belief that this acquisition was all about advocacy. Convio owes a lot of it’s success to the Howard Dean 2004 Presidential campaign. The Dean’s campaign online donor strategy was new and worked, until the candidate self destructed on national TV.

We are gearing up for the 2008 presidential run - believe me living in DC it never really stops. This acquisition positions Convio to be the premier player in this space at just the right time.

The field for 2008, on both sides of the isle, is wide open. Both parties will be running a number of candidates in the primaries with no clear front runner. So these candidates need to start raising money and now. Time to shop for vendors.

Kintera’s pricing model includes transaction fees. This model doesn’t appeal to campaigns, they want the biggest chunk of every dollar they collect to get to the candidate. So enter Convio’s track record and now they have this new GetActive software and DC based staff.

This is all speculation, but hey what else is a blog for. If in the next few months Convio works hard to integrate the advocacy model and leans heavily on GetActive’s DC staff to sell and support canidates, then I will be right, if not I will be wrong.

Have your own predictions about this? That is what comments are for.