Mister Wong acquires Cligs URL shortener

Nearly a month after planned shut down, Cligs finds an eager buyer

Last we heard from Cligs, in early October, was the sad announcement from founder Pierre Far that the service would be shutting down by the end of the month, with user accounts remaining intact through November and possibly longer. In his announcement, however, Far made clear that he was more than willing to sale the company to an eager buyer:

"Am I willing to sell the service? Of course! As I said to everyone who’s asked that, I’m very open to any idea that keeps the service running," Far had said. "The point here is that I cannot continue to be the only one running the service."

After being contacted by multiple parties with interest in the company, Far announced today that Cligs has been acquired by social bookmarking site Mister Wong.

Founded in Germany in March 2006, Mister Wong claims to be Europe's largest social bookmarking portal, with over 7 million monthly users. At first only a German language site, the startup has since made the service available in English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and French. Mister Wong's acquisition of Cligs may be a sign that the company is looking to further expand its horizons, setting its sights on better-known competitors like del.icio.us.

From the Mister Wong blog:

"Cligs is a complete service with a unique set of tools and a solid user base. Competition is healthy for the market and it would be a real shame to see such a useful service disappear. We are happy to add Cligs to our existing portfolio of Web 2.0 services and we look forward to welcoming all its users to the Wong family."

In an email to VatorNews, Far said that Mister Wong was particularly concerned about Bit.ly completely dominating the URL shortener market, should Cligs completely close down. The company will integrate Cligs into its site, alongside their own URL shortener, wong.to.

Though Far would not disclose the value of the acqusition, he suggested that he had a large pool of interested parties to choose from:

"A big part of why Mister Wong won the bidding process was their track record in building great websites with large engaged communities. To me, making sure that the Cligs users will be treated well after the sale was a key criterion for me in choosing the winner."