Despite a bleak economic outlook, 2009 saw the release of some incredible new Web services. But every year--recession or no recession--there are always a few sites that close their doors.
We've highlighted 15 sites that ceased operations over the course of the year. A number of them came from big companies like Google and Yahoo--the latter of which did some major restructuring in 2008 that left it with new leadership and a leaner, meaner mentality towards cutting things that just weren't working. Others were simply ideas that needed a little more time and money, but couldn't get it in time.
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Tech blog TechCrunch is hosting the third iteration of its annual startup show next week, where 50 brand new sites and services are slated to be launched. The show was started in early-2007 by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and entrepreneur and Weblogs Inc. co-founder Jason Calacanis as an alternative to the DEMO conference series. Instead of paying to be on stage (once selected) as is done at DEMO, companies selected by Arrington and Calacanis get to present for free.
Next week at the TechCrunch 50 conference, 50 new companies will take the stage and make a pitch, while about a hundred others--some new, some retreads from prior TechCrunch events, fight for attention on a paid show floor called the "Demo Pit."
How many of these companies that launched at a TechCrunch event have gone on to fame and glory? It was hard enough for these companies to make a mark when they were fighting for attention against dozens of other start-ups. It's even harder to continue momentum from a conference after the dust settles. Below are five that have done quite well, and five that haven't.
The good
Mint made its public debut at the TechCrunch40 in 2007, where it won the audience choice award, netting it $50,000 in cash (that it didn't really need).
The site presents users with a bold option: give us your bank account, mortgage, and credit card information and we'll help you track how you're spending your money and give you tips and tools on how to save.
Since 2007, it's since gone on to raise two additional rounds of funding, bringing the total past $30 million. The site also has 1.4 million registered users. and claims to be "tracking $175 billion in transactions, $47 billion in assets and has identified more than $300 million in potential savings for its users." It's also won numerous awards, including a Webware 100 award in 2009, a "50 best websites of 2009" recognition from Time Magazine, as well a nod from PCMag's "Top 100 websites of 2009"
Postbox, a Mozilla-based e-mail client that launched at last year's TechCrunch50 show, has done well for itself inside a year. For one, it's publicly available and fully out of beta--which is more unusual than it should be. It's also a paid and license-based product, meaning the company isn't just giving it away for free.
Earlier this year Postbox won a Webware 100 award in the communications category as voted on by CNET readers. It was also picked as Lifehacker's "Top 10 Up-and-coming products" shortly after its release.
Another e-mail utility graduate, Xobni, came from the first TechCrunch show back in late-2007, when there were just 40 companies presenting. The product, called "Insight," was a plug-in for Microsoft's Outlook e-mail software, and could replace Microsoft's built-in search tool, as well as show users details on the frequency of those they were e-mailing with.
In the months prior to 2007's TechCrunch 40, Xobni had picked up a little more than $4 million in funding. The product, however, remained in private beta until mid-2008, after which it was opened up to the public. Then, in early January of this year, the company announced another round of funding, totaling $7 million, including Cisco Systems as one of the investors.
The company also released a paid version of its service in mid-July that costs $30 a year and adds extra features on top of the free product. It remains a product for the desktop version Microsoft Outlook only, although... Read more
Kwiry, "the remind yourself to do a search about something later" company, is closing up shop next week. According to a company blog post, the service is shutting itself down due to "economic realities."
In the meantime, users are kindly being given the next 10 days to grab all their previous searches, which can be saved as a CSV file and exported into other reminder services.
I hate to see the site go, but it was a concept that was a hard sell to casual users. Aimed at users without smartphones (or data plans), it started out as a way to remember to do a search for something when back at a computer. In fact, it did the search for you. It then branched off into a reminder tool, and a quick way to add TV shows directly to your TiVo lineup or a movie to your Netflix queue.
Where there could have been some hope for the service is a reduction in the price of text messages. However, that's a trend that's been going in the other direction since 2005. Between that and the increasing saturation of smartphone users with data plans, the company was likely fighting an uphill battle and losing to traditional mobile-friendly search engines, or to free voice-powered search services such as GOOG-411 and Microsoft's Live Search 411.
The message sent to users via e-mail, announcing the shutdown.
(Credit: Kwiry Inc.)Previously:
Forget about remembering with Kwiry's SMS-based social search tool
Forget-me-not service Kwiry adds photo nagging
Kwiry puts Netflix, Amazon in your pocket
(Credit:
Mosaic Legends)
I'm not embarrassed to admit that I have a rather intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Deadheads. This may or may not have to do with the fact that I am related (closely) to more than a couple of them. And if I know anything about this particular community, it's that they are fanatical, which is why they are the perfect audience for a $6 photo app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Of course, this is not just any photo app, it's the new Grateful Dead Photomosaic App and it is awesome--and I'm too young to be a Deadhead, so don't go getting any ideas about my bias (although...I was involuntarily exposed to a scary amount of the Dead's music at a very tender age).
San Francisco rock photographer Jay Blakesberg has teamed up with a digital media company called Mosaic Legends to create the super sweet app, which when downloaded mashes up the 450 photographs Jay took of the Grateful Dead into a photographic mosaic of Jerry Garcia.
You can then tap to zoom in on the photos, and--eventually, when you've zoomed in enough--read the photographer's notes about where and when the picture was taken. Once you want to back up to see more shots, you can use the pinching motion to zoom out.
After a few zooms, you can also drag the mosaic around to browse through the photos and see which you might want to learn more about. Some have more in-depth info than others, with commentary as well as the time and place the photo was shot. If you have an Internet connection, you can also see others' feedback on the image. In addition, the app includes a "chapters" page where you can read fun facts about the Dead, their shows, and their fans.
All in all, the app provides a great experience for the die-hard fan, and it's well worth the $5.99 for any iPhone-toting Deadhead. Now, if you'll excuse me...I just got the overwhelming desire to hear "Touch of Grey."
In case you had forgotten that microblogging and file-sharing social network Pownce is shutting down in mere hours, here's your friendly reminder.
If you were a user of the site, now is a good time to go back and take one last look at all your past quips, shared files, and discussion threads, since they'll soon be wiped clean.
As mentioned before, there is an escape hatch to take everything you've posted to the site and bring it elsewhere--the only catch is that you have to request it before the site shutters. You'll get a download link to the data file e-mailed in "a few days," but you must begin the process from this page while it's still up.
There's a post on the official Pownce blog about what to do when you get your hands on the data, in the form of import instructions for Vox, TypePad, and WordPress.
Most of my Pownce contacts seem to have left for Twitter or Vox. There's also a room in FriendFeed called "Pownce Exiles" with just fewer than 200 members. It's hard to believe that there was a time in which invitations to this site were fetching cold, hard cash on eBay.
Update: Pownce has now shut down completely, although the export page, along with the links to download exported user data files remains. Of note is that my data export from earlier today only took a couple of hours, instead of days as the site stated. One reader also wrote in to let us know ex-Powncers can export their identity to Soup.io, although I'm not sure if this works since Pownce's site is no longer there to serve up the data.
Pownce users can export their user data to another network before the site shuts down. The exported data takes a couple of days to show up elsewhere, though.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
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