Web Zombies I

The web is full of zombie companies, which are unable to live and unable to die. From time to time I like to watch some of these living dead.Here is our "web zombie of the month":

Once upon an time there was a company.  A famous one, almost everybody knew it. It's estimated worth was $ 580 million at its peak.  In early days the platform even was a facebook competitor, which overtook it in 2008 - regarding user numbers.

But in just 6 years the company managed to loose 90% of its value (or shall I say - was managed to loose?). The platform finally was sold for $31 million (a dollar per user, more or less). In the last years the involvment of a well-known celebrity from the music business might have helped to win some users back. But the truth is, that this extended only the time of its undead existence.

Today the platform is truly "out". No current usage statistic is provided by the company. Nobody needs it. Nobody wants it. It seems that the crowd moved on. Game over. I am talking about myspace.

Web Zombies:
The web is full of zombie companies, which are unable to live and unable to die. From time to time I like to watch some of these living dead.

We know the phenomenom from the startup scene: a great idea gets some funding, but after some time of enthusiasm, or even visible success, the company either reaches its limits, fails to create a business model, or both. But instead of being kill and buried, it  becomes a living dead. Why? Too much money has been spent, too many emotions are involved, too many reasons seemed to provide a vivid future.  Everybody knows some of these "nice-idea-didnt-work-out" companies. And in many cases one would have wished they have failed earlier and letal, instead of hanging around in the internet basement, waiting for a miracle or someone to kill it, finally.