site-deaths

From IndieWeb
(Redirected from silo death)

XKCD Google Announcement comic

Where incredible journeys end

Site deaths are when sites go offline, taking content and permalinks with them, and breaking the web accordingly. Site deaths are one of the big reasons why you should own your own identity and content on the web.

This is a chronology of content hosting sites that have died, removing millions (billions?) of permalinks from the web. This is specifically for content hosting sites which permitted end-user posting. Not random sites nor pure "app" sites where there's no loss of user data. If a game site goes down and takes down play history/scores, or if Gmail went away those would both represent loss of user data (though no public permalinks).

The tendency for big companies to shut down a service and delete all your things has now even been satirised by XKCD. Andy Baio talks through one example from creation, to growth, acquisition, acquihire, disillusionment, neglect, and shutdown.

Research

Upcoming

This is a partial list, please add more, e.g. from other sources like:

Expected/announced site deaths. Check them upon announced shutdown date.

  • If site shutdown is confirmed, move to #Past by year.
  • If site is still up as of shutdown date, move to #Any_Day_Now

Soonest first:

Post News

2024-04-19: Post News announced they would be closing in the next few weeks.[1] (archived)

We are releasing a feature that allows you to download your content. It will be available next week. We recommend you run the export once you feel you are finished posting here at Post News. You can access this from SETTINGS > ACCOUNT. Once your data is prepared, it will be emailed to you directly.

Foursquare City Guide

The City Guide app will be available until December 15, 2024 at 11:59 PM ET. It’s at this time, you will no longer have access to login to City Guide through your mobile device. However, you can continue to access City Guide via the web until early in the 2025 New Year (exact date to come). After that, City Guide in its entirety will no longer be available.

Any Day Now

These sites are officially closed, but some functionality may still be working (e.g. logging in and viewing your activity).

  • 2017? Vine On 2016-10-27 they announced they would be discontinuing the mobile app, but keeping the website online. [2]

Acquihires

The announcement of an acquihire or other exotic corporate acquisitions by silos or other companies may, but does not necessarily, indicate a potential future site-death. Exporting your personal data from these services may be a good preventative measure against potential future data loss.

  • 2020-05-07: Keybase acquired by Zoom and the team is now working on Zoom security instead, with no specific plans for Keybase.
    • No subsequent Keybase updates as of 2022-09-14, but site is still online
  • add acquihire companies here

Speculative

Near Misses

These services announced potential shutdowns but circumstances ultimately evolved to save all or parts of them and the data they maintained. Users of these services should still use caution with regard to their data and community.

Frontback

  • 2015-07-24 frontback [5]
    • "Frontback as a service will be winding down on August 15th. On this page we provide you with an easy way to export all your photos. Your data will be available to download until September 15th, 2015. After this date, all photos and data will be permanently deleted from our servers."
    • Frontback announced on 2015-08-01 that they're staying open.

      We just signed an agreement with a partner who believes as much as we do that there’s something incredible with Frontback. This partner is fully committed to make Frontback an even better place to share your moments, we were impressed by how much they understand the platform and we will help the new team to make the transition as smooth as possible.http://blog.frontback.me/post/125627783291/important-message-to-our-community

8Tracks

  • 2019-12-31 8Tracks, an online social site for making remixes popular among DJs will shut down.

Craftsy / Bluprint


Past

This is an incomplete list. Please help by adding examples from these sources (in particular when user authored content was lost):

See also (and add one-line summaries to) the history page.

In reverse chronological order:

2024

TinyLetter

The service will be discontinued on February 29th, 2024, according to a message I see when logged into my TinyLetter account.

  • 2019-??? TinyLetter according to http://www.businessinsider.com/tinyletter-will-fold-into-mailchimp-in-the-future-but-its-not-going-to-happen-in-2018-2018-1

    MailChimp has plans to merge its TinyLetter product with the rest of its newsletter services — though the change won't happen this year.
    ...
    "there are no plans to sunset TinyLetter in 2018."

    ("won't happen this year", "no plans ... sunset ... in 2018" => so 2019 then)
    • 2020-10-13 Tinyletter (by Mailchimp) is still up and running; it's more likely to be merged completely into MailChimp than shut down.
    • 2018-01-31 Jeremy Cherfas asked about obtaining the text of past newsletters and received this response: "It's not possible to export your previous newsletters, but if you visit the archive page, you can print them to PDF from there. Alternately, you can copy and paste the text from the "sent" page in your account." Users of TinyLetter and Mailchimp have always been able to download a list of subscribers. No other data are available to users of TinyLetter, and any replies to newsletters are forwarded to the user, who should therefor have a copy of them.
    • 2011-08-31 MailChimp Acquires TinyLetter

2023

Blogs.Harvard

A read-only archive as of 2023-07-31.

We are deferring the shutdown of blogs.harvard.edu until July 31, 2023. During this period, the blog server will be placed into a read-only mode to allow blog users additional time to migrate and for the potential creation of an online archive. The deferred shutdown and archive would also provide link integrity and continuity for blogs that are not being migrated to other platforms.

This archive is hosted by Automattic in coordination with the Berkman Klein Center in an effort to keep this important historic piece of the internet online.

IRL

Revue

Revue (https://www.getrevue.co/) was an editorial newsletter service for writers and publishers.

  • 2021-01: bought by Twitter.
  • 2022-12-20: all paid subscriptions set to cancel at end of billing cycle.

    If you run a paid newsletter, on December 20, 2022 we will set all paid subscriptions to cancel at the end of their billing cycle. This is to prevent your subscribers being charged for Revue content after the point where it is no longer possible to send newsletters from Revue.

  • 2023-01-18: shutdown, no longer able to access your account

    From January 18, 2023, it will no longer be possible to access your Revue account. On that date, Revue will shut down and all data will be deleted.

  • 2023-03-15: Domain was last online and archived.

Prior link to download subscribers, newsletters, and analytics: http://www.getrevue.co/app/offboard

It was used by several new media journalistic organizations including The Markup (https://www.getrevue.co/profile/klaxon).

2022-12-14 Martijn de Kuijper: We’ve made the difficult decision to shut down Revue. (archived)

2022

Kinja

2024-04-19: Reviewing: The kylenw example was last archived 2022-12-08 before it started redirecting to deadspin.com profile. Expect that's the case for other profiles, so categorizing this as a 2022 site death.

Reading.am

You’re receiving this email because, at some point in the last decade, a Reading.am account was created using this address. Apologies, but I’m closing up shop at the end of this month and will take the site offline, permanently, at 11:59pm ET on June 30th, 2022.

If you’d like to download your bookmarks, you can do so in HTML, CSV, and JSON formats at this link: https://www.reading.am/settings/extras

If you have any difficulty logging in or downloading that data, please do let me know in the next couple of weeks and I’ll make time to troubleshoot.

Reading was always a labor of love and I want to thank you for being a part of it. If you’re curious about what I’ll be up to in the future, you can follow me here: https://twitter.com/leppert

And, as always, you can respond directly to this email; I’d love to hear from you.

—Greg


2021

Spectrum.chat

Community platform spectrum.chat got acquired by Microsoft and is being "sunset" by August 2021. According to the official announcement old content will be kept in a read-only state "for the forseeable future"; the team mentions in their comments that there is neither a path to directly contact community members about the changes nor a means to transfer existing content over to the new product (GitHub Discussions).

Google App Maker

2021-01-19 Google App Maker shut down (per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_App_Maker), it was a G Suite program that builds apps.

  • 2022: https://appmaker.google.com/ shows:

    Error: Page not found

    The requested URL was not found on this server.

  • Available to Business G Suite accounts, users can create a project as easily as creating a Google Doc or Google Sheet.
  • On January 27, 2020 Google has announced the termination of this service due to low usage.

2020

Yahoo Groups

Yahoo has made the decision to no longer allow users to upload content to the Yahoo Groups site. Beginning October 28, you won't be able to upload any more content to the site, and as of December 14 all previously posted content on the site will be permanently removed. You'll have until that date to save anything you've uploaded.

The Yahoo Groups site will continue to exist, however, all public groups will be made private or restricted. Any new group members will need to request an invite or be invited by an admin. Admins will still be able to manage various group settings, though some functionality will be limited.

...

Photos and files can be saved right from the Yahoo Groups site, or you can download your data from the Privacy Dashboard.

Firefox Send / Notes

2020-09-17: Mozilla shuts down Firefox Send and Firefox notes after ~18 months of operation

Vampirefreaks

2020 February: vampirefreaks, a goth/industrial/darkwave/etc social network closed all social aspects of their site and became an alternative fashion outlet. It was similar to MySpace in many aspects, including hosting music, and allowing niche bands - examples: Combichrist, Emilie Autumn and The Birthday Massacre - to kickstart their carrier.

TinyCards

2020-09-01 TinyCards was a flashcards/spaced repetition service (web, iOS and Android apps) created by Duolingo. Users could create and share their own card decks. Duolingo announcement Reddit thread

  • 2020-07-01 Email notice sent to users on July 1, with planned closure on September 1.

Mixer

2020-07-22 Mixer was a live streaming silo service

soup.io

soup.io was "blogging from the rest of us". It will shutdown "in less than 10 days"

Heroes Wiki

  • 2020-06-01 The Heroes Wiki was shutdown due to decreasing traffic (and thus ad revenue) being insufficient to maintain the site.
    • 6,536 content pages (MediaWiki) when shutdown
    • 9,992 user accounts (ibid)
    • Mirror was set up that same day (2020-06-01) using an "XML dump" from the original, apparently imported into another MediaWiki install (except for the users):

Wunderlist

Bittr

  • 2020-04-28 After 3 years it launched the founder of Bittr announced the shutdown of their service. The company which was a bitcoin savings platform through which European consumers can safely buy bitcoin regularly, straight into their own bitcoin wallet and the cause of this shutdown was the AMLD5 law in The Netherlands.

Highly

  • 2020-01-27 The Highly service has been shut down and the team is moving to Twitter. On 2020-01-22 The service emailed users to download their data by January 27th. As of 2020-01-31 the site indicates that the service is shuttered and that "The Highly Team has joined Twitter."
    • 2019-04-17 Highly announced on Medium that they would be joining Twitter. They indicate that their service should continue though some paid portions will change or be discontinued.

2019

Sandstorm

  • 2019-12-31 Sandstorm Oasis is Shutting Down

Sandstorm was enables non-technical end users to install and run arbitrary software on servers they control. Apps could downloaded from an app store and installed with one click, like installing apps on phone. Each app was running in a secure sandbox, where it could not interfere with other apps without permission.

Sandstorm shutdown beacause team was forced to look for new jobs. Most of them were hired by Cloudflare, though some chose to go elsewhere.

Mozilla Thimble

  • 2019-12-18 Mozilla shuts down Thimble

    • Thimble was an open-source project created by Mozilla in partnership with CDOT at Seneca College. Since its inception, Thimble contributors from all over the world played an important role in making it a success. More than 350 contributors from over 30 countries localized Thimble into 33 languages. Thimble had active users in scores of countries.Mozilla Foundation

  • 2018-12-18 Mozilla announced the pending decommission of Thimble Announcement

    • Over the years, Mozilla’s educational software has helped teach critical digital skills, from creating content to mastering HTML and CSS. But as new threats and opportunities to the open internet arise, Mozilla sometimes decommissions projects to focus on new ones.

    • We expect Thimble to be fully retired by December 2019

goo.gl URL shortener

  • 2019-03-30: goo.gl (Google's URL Shortener) will shut down completely: "If you have existing goo.gl short links, you can continue to use all features of goo.gl console for a period of one year, until March 30, 2019, when we will discontinue the console. You can manage all your short links and their analytics through the goo.gl console during this period. After March 30, 2019, all links will continue to redirect to the intended destination."

CiteULike

2019-03-30: CiteULike announced on 2019-02-19 that they will be shutting down their education-related social bookmarking service.

Unfortunately, the costs associated with providing it and the fact that none of us really has any time to put into the maintenance and development of the site mean that we have to call it a day.

Zcast

After 4 years, we have made the hard decision to end our ZCast journey.

ZCast will run in minimal capacity between now and the end of January 2019, and will then shut down indefinitely.

If you have any content you recorded on ZCast that you wish to download, we have enabled the download feature to all users.

https://about.zcast.co/blog/end-of-broadcast/

2018

Unixcorn.xyz Mastodon

- FR

J'ai décidé d'arrêter Unixcorn, je suis fatigué et las de l'hypocrisie du truc collectif alors qu'en fait je porte tout seul le truc depuis plusieurs années. J'ai échoué à rendre ce truc réellement collectif et souhaite maintenant passer à autre chose.

- EN

I decided to stop Unixcorn, I'm tired and weary about the hypocrisy of presenting the project as a collective one. I took care of it alone for years and now I want to let go and go on. https://unixcorn.xyz/@unixcorn/100661173664470093

Path

  • 2018-10-18 Path Notice of shutdown on 2018-09-17
    • 2018-10-01: Unable to download/update the app in iTunes and Google Play
    • 2018-10-18: Termination of the Service (Unable to access to Path)
    • 2018-11-15: Path related customer service will be closed
    • Export your data before 2018-10-18. See Path#How_to_export

It is with deep regret that we announce that we will stop providing our beloved service, Path.

We started Path in 2010 as a small team of passionate and experienced designers and engineers. Over the years we have tried to lay out our mission: through technology and design we aim to be a source of happiness, meaning, and connection to our users. Along our journey we have laughed and cried with you, and learned valuable lessons. And it is now inevitable to wind down the service to prioritize our work to serve you with better products and services.

It has been a long journey and we sincerely thank each one of you for your years of love and support for Path.

Quitter.no

2018-09-05 GNU Social instance Quitter.no 2018-06-17: Notice of shutdown on 2018-09-05 (archived)

abjectio @knuthollund!quitterno 17 jun Message to users of quitter.no. I've decided to close this site on it's 4th birthday, that is 5th September -18. I do not have the energy and capacity to host the site anymore. Please "migrate" or find a new GNU Social home. I've decided to not handover the maintenance or data to anyone else - so please do not ask to get the data to host this site further. Thank you all for using Quitter this period and for following it's users. - A. !quitterno #gnusocial #quitter

Wikispaces

Over the last twelve months we have been carrying out a complete technical review of the infrastructure and software we use to serve Wikispaces users. As part of the review, it has become apparent that the required investment to bring the infrastructure and code in line with modern standards is very substantial. We have explored all possible options for keeping Wikispaces running but have had to conclude that it is no longer viable to continue to run the service in the long term. So, it is with no small degree of nostalgia, that we will begin to close down later this year.

WikiSpace stopped working after a technical review informed the team that the infrastructure and code in accordance with modern standards were very important.

Phased shutdown:

  • Classroom and Free Wikis end of service: 2018-07-31
  • Plus and Super Wikis end of service: 2018-09-30
  • Private Label Wikis end of service: 2019-01-31

Yahoo Messenger

Through the end of November, 2018, you can download your chat history to you personal computer or device.

  1. Go to the downloader request site.
  2. Sign in.
  3. Select a verification method, then enter the Account Key sent to you.
  4. Click Download.
  5. Enter the email where you want the file sent and click OK.
  6. Watch your email for the file.

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN28776.html

StumbleUpon

  • 2018-06-30 StumbleUpon.com was a social bookmarking, discovery, and advertisement engine that pushed web content recommendations to its users. It was shut down in June 2018 in favor of a new discovery platform called Mix. Apparently they emailed users prior to the shutdown/switch over to migrate usernames and data, but apparently many users 1 lost all their bookmark data. According to their shut down post, there were 40 million people who used it over the lifetime of the product.

GNUsocial.de

Klout

2018-05-25: Klout shut down.

The Klout acquisition provided Lithium with valuable artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities, but Klout as a standalone service is not aligned with our long-term business strategy. We appreciate the loyal Klouters out there who stuck with us all these years – keep influencing!

Foodspotting

Storify

X-marks

  • 2018-05-01: X-marks was a cross-browser bookmark synchronization service owned by LogMeIn (parent of LastPass) that was shut down on May 1, 2018. [9]. LogMeIn provided some reasonable advance notice of the shutdown, and because of its basic fuctionality, ideally, did not result in the loss of data following its shut down.

Mozilla Webmaker

  • 2018-04-30 Mozilla's communication director notes the webmaker app and website would no longer be supported by Mozilla.

    • Mozilla is no longer supporting Webmaker for Android; we're currently devoting our resources to our advocacy, leadership, and Internet Health Report work. Mozilla is in the process of updating older properties. Thanks for writing — and let me know if I can answer further questions.</blockuote>

  • 2016-04-25 Webmaker for Android receives it last update. [10]

witches town

Polyvore

  • 2018-04-05: Polyvore fashion website posted on 2018-04-05 that the site would be immediately shut down following their acquisition. They set up a separate website where users can download their data and opt out of the data sharing agreement with the acquiring company. However, many users seem to be having trouble actually exporting their data.

Digg Reader

Bumpers

  • 2018-03-06: Bumpers and Captioned closing.

BeeHub

  • 2018-03-01: BeeHub was a SURFsara's file storage and sharing service through the WebDAV protocol, which shut down on 2018-03-01.

Mapzen

Lanyrd

  • 2018-01-24: Lanyrd events listing site returns an error page as of 2018-01-24. Has been neglected and overrun with spam since purchase by Eventbrite.
    • Complaints regarding Lanyrd "dying on the vine" since Eventbrite purchase have been around since at least 2015-09-29 (see Dear EventBrite and Lanyrd: WTF? by Dan Applequist)
  • notist has built a pseudo-export tool that will pull your data into their system as well as email you a copy.

Huffington Post contributor platform (blogs)

2017

VersionEye

VersionEye was created in 2012 and allowed to monitor the project files of package managers on GitHub, Bitbucket or Stash. The project was stopped in October 2017 for various reasons:

  • Revenue
  • Sales
  • Support
  • Competition
  • Motivation

Plaxo

Gratipay

Gratipay announced they would close at the end of 2017

2017-12-29: gratipay.com switched to a static site

Microsoft Codeplex

AIM

  • 2017-12-15: AIM is shutting down.

Gimme Bar

  • 2017-12-06: Gimme Bar is shutting down.
    • Announced 2017-12-06 by email and Twitter from a developer's account [11]
    • As of 2017-12-07, it appears you cannot save new bookmarks. Logging in showed a message that my export has not been generated yet and to contact the supplied email to get it gRegor Morrill 14:38, 7 December 2017 (PST)

Popup Archive and Audiosear.ch

  • 2017-11-28 Popup Archive and Audiosear.ch, a service for transcribing audio, are shutting down. In their blog post announcement (archived), they describe how to export your data before they shut down.
    • As of 2018-03-14 the website does not resolve.

Opinion

Pronoun (publishing platform)

  • November 2017 Pronoun was a New York-based company that provides free book publishing, marketing, and analytics services to authors. Pronoun was launched in 2015.

Before its purchase by Macmillan Pronoun was preceded by Vook, a digital book publisher that combined text, video and links to the Internet and social media in unique applications available online and on mobile phones. Vook was founded by Bradley Inman, a serial Internet entrepreneur, and announced in April 2009. In November 2017, Macmillan announced the closing of Pronoun, with no new authors or books being accepted. Legacy writers were told they could continue their account activities with already submitted materials but that Macmillan expects to terminate distribution around mid-January 2018.(More).

TwitPic

  • 2014-09-25 Twitpic announced it would be shut down, but on 2014-09-18 TwitPic stated it was acquired and would not be shut down.
    • "We're happy to announce we've been acquired and Twitpic will live on! We will post more details as we can disclose them"[12]
    • Original reason for the shutdown announcement:

      A few weeks ago Twitter contacted our legal demanding that we abandon our trademark application or risk losing access to their API. [..] Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark which we believe whole heartedly is rightfully ours. Therefore, we have decided to shut down Twitpic.

    • Data export:

      You will be able to export all your photos and videos. We’ll let everyone know when this feature is live in the next few days.

    • 2014-10-25 Twitpic’s Future

      […] we have reached an agreement with Twitter to give them the Twitpic domain and photo archive, thus keeping the photos and links alive for the time being.

      Emphasis added, thus implying domain and permalinks still at risk.
  • 2017-12-30 Twitpic.com now redirects to Twitter.com - permalinks, if available, to content still resolve to the original photos

dasklub.com

das Klub was a US based social network centered around industrial music and industrial community that was shut down by the single admin without any proper announcement. Everything was deleted, no data export was possible, the site is gone.

  • THE END of das Klub [13]
  • The End of Das Klub - Personal Opinion and Thoughts by JavaxChaos [14]

atomenabled.org

Was the canonical site for the Atom syndication format and publishing protocol.

SquirrelSave

  • 2017-08-09 SquirrelSave - an encrypted cloud backup facility that offered unlimited storage space for any number of PCs for a flat monthly fee - has been discontinued [15]
    • 2017-07-19 Announced [16]

    • We regret to announce that SquirrelSave will be shutting down on the 9th August 2017. All existing customers have been notified, but we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our customers for choosing SquirrelSave for your backup requirements. Please do email our customer care team should you have any questions or require assistance.

Hackpad

  • 2017-07-19: Hackpad shutting down after acquired by Dropbox.
    • 2017-04-21: Email to users encouraging them to try Dropbox Paper, with the options of importing Hackpad pads into Paper, or exporting pads into a single zip folder, or do nothing and let pads be automatically migrated to Paper on 2017-07-19, or opt out of automatic migration.

Clammr

  • 2017-06-28 Clammr, an audio sharing site, announced by email that "we will be shutting down the Clammr service at 11:59pm ET on 2 July 2017." The company offered advice on how users can save their Clammrs.

Imzy

  • 2017-06-23 Imzy shutting down.
    • 2017-05-23 Announced [17]

    • Data export requests must be received by June 16th. We will do our best to accommodate last minute and late requests but it is not guaranteed. The site will go read only on the 16th. You will have access to your data until June 21st. The site will go dark on June 23rd.

del.icio.us

Clef

  • 2017-06-06: Clef shutting down.
    • 2017-03-06: Announced [18]

    • The Clef product will continue operating for three months, starting today, with a final shutdown date of June 6, 2017. Everything will remain fully functional and maintained until that date, at which point the mobile apps will cease functioning and be removed from the Google Play and Apple App stores.

    • As of 2017-06-08, the closure has been extended by one month "Clef will stop working on July 7, 2017 -- we recommend transitioning to Jetpack’s two-factor authentication as soon as possible."

AgileZen

FFFFound

mlkshk

  • 2017-05-01 mlkshk to shut down
    • 2017-22-02 Sunset announced on blog (archived)
    • 2017-04-01 turning off the ability to upload files to MLKSHK and the ability to view posts without being signed into your account. At that point we’ll provide a method for downloading all of your files to your computer.
    • 2017-05-01 MLKSHK will discontinue serving files

Flavors.me

  • 2017-02-15: Flavors.me shutting down
  • 2017-03-31: Closed all free accounts

Autodesk 123D

  • 2017-03-31: Autodesk 123D shutting down.
    • 2016-12-16: Sunset Announced [19]
    • 2016-03-28: Imminent shutdown notice on their Facebook page [20]

so.cl

App.net

Tribe.net

OpenStudy

  • 2017-01-31 OpenStudy, a social learning site focused on helping students with homework, is scheduled to stop service at the end of January. OpenStudy was acquired by Brainly. Users weren't given the ability to export data prior to shut down and it wasn't ported over to Brain.ly. Users of the service needed to create new accounts on Brain.ly to continue usage.
    • Please expand with any information about number of users who lost data.

Parse

  • 2017-01-28 Parse shutting down

2016

TiddlySpace

TiddlySpace is/was an online notebook that builds on the tried and tested "tiddler" model introduced by TiddlyWiki by moving tiddlers to the web. Details for exporting data were provided in a related Google Group

Persona

Fetchnotes

  • 2016-02-15 Fetchnotes is shutting down. In an email to users on 2016-02-03, Fetchnotes announced they would be shutting down the service in 13 days. A data export tool is provided in the website.
    • "We considered selling Fetchnotes to another company, but we preferred to do right by all of you in making sure that you could take your data with you. Even if we left it running, once we handed it off to somebody else, there's no way to know for sure how things would end."
  • 2016-02-17 revived with plans to crowdsource. [21]
  • 2016-10-08: Announced final shutdown would be 2016-11-08, after not receiving the necessary support.[22]

Panoramio

Dipity

2016-09: Dipity shut down

Orkut

  • 2016-09 Orkut Export shuts down.
    • 2014-09-30 Orkut shut down. Public archives read-only archives available at https://orkut.google.com/
    • "We are preserving an archive of all public communities, which will be available online starting September 30, 2014. If you don't want your posts or name to be included in the community archive, you can remove Orkut permanently from your Google account." [23]
    • "People can export their profile data, community posts and photos using Google Takeout (available until September 2016)" (ibid)

Readability

  • 2016-09-30 Readability bookmarking service shutting down. [24]

    • You can export your bookmarks by visiting your Tools page, scrolling down to the Data Export section, and clicking the Export Your Data button. You’ll receive an email soon after that contains your bookmarks. Similar services like Instapaper will allow you to import your bookmarks into their service.

    • The Readability Parser API for developers will continue to be supported and will continue to function as always. We plan to put new energy and focus on the Readability parser, and further announcements will follow.

Symantec Personal Identity Port

  • 2016-09-12 Symantec Personal Identity Port
    • Symantec will be discontinuing the service currently located at: https://pip.verisignlabs.com/
    • Announced in an email on 5/6/16: "All content from the service will be discarded and there will be no backups made. It is the user's responsibility to remove any content as after the date above it will not be recoverable. This will be the only notification provided. Due to the nature of the service, there is no migration plan available. If you have any questions you can send an email to: support@verisignlabs.com"
    • The service previously allowed: One-Click Sign In to store your usernames and passwords in PIP. Then click a link in your browser to quickly sign in to your accounts; Quickly and conveniently sign in or register at any Web site that displays the OpenID logo; Use your Personal Identity Page to display information you want people to know about you and to link to your other social networking sites; Protect your important files and records by safely storing them in the online File Vault.

Hi.co

  • 2016-09-01 Hi.co shuts down.
    • You can export your stories until the close date by going to http://hi.co/people/{yourname}/export

    • We’re printing — using a microscopic ion-etching process — the entire website upon a 2" × 2" nickel plate, giving it a fire- and saltwater-resistant shelf life of 10,000 years.[¹] At least five plates will be produced, to be held by five stewards — museums and libraries — around the world.https://medium.com/@craigmod/archiving-our-online-communities-e5868eab4d9a#.sx6vs0b5m

Google Drive web hosting

  • 2016-08-31 Google Drive [25]
    • Beginning August 31st, 2015, web hosting in Google Drive for users and developers will be deprecated. You can continue to use this feature for a period of one year until August 31st, 2016, when we will discontinue serving content via googledrive.com/host/[doc id].

Picturelife

  • 2016-08-22 Picturelife shut down after several months of photos being offline.
    • SmugMug worked with Picturelife to rescue photos and make them available again.

Togethera

  • 2016-08-04 Togethera and Upshot
    • Startup that provided private sharing of photos (etc.) for families. Announced via blog post on 2016-07-04 that they had failed to secure funding. The owners said that they will email current users with a link to download all uploaded material three days after the site shuts down. They also announced that the side project Upshot (which allows users to share pictures from nights out together that auto-delete after one week) would be shut down. (TechCrunch article, Tweet)

ReadLists

ThinkUp

  • 2016-07-18 ThinkUp
    • Announced 2016-06-13 that the service would shut down and refunds would be issued for the balance of member subscriptions.
    • New signups closed as of 2016-06-13

    • There have been significant changes from Instagram, Twitter and Facebook that make it too hard for us to keep the service running, especially since we’ve been struggling as a business. We’re sorry, and we’re going to try to handle this shutdown the right way. https://medium.com/@anildash/the-end-of-thinkup-e600bc46cc56#.n1rxxbe6m

Tomatoist

Facebook Paper

Poetica

Portable Contacts

portablecontacts.net, the canonical site for the Portable Contacts standard, died in May 2016, zombie reincarnated in July 2016, and is a zombie site to this day (2018).

  • 2016-05-16 portablecontacts.net domain expired and was not subsequently renewed in time by site owners
  • ... domain was squatted by someone else
  • 2016-07-31 https://web.archive.org/web/20160731191234/http://portablecontacts.net:80/ zombie reincarnation started with new WordPress install that eventually redirects to a t.co link (hence unlinked archive.org link)

See Portable Contacts for more (past archives etc.)

Revolv

  • 2016-05-15 Revolv
    • Startup that sold $300 home automation hubs. Bought by Nest, a Google/Alphabet subsidiary, and due to be shutdown. The shutdown of Revolv has caused a lot of customer anger on Twitter and elsewhere. Guardian article, The Verge article, Medium post by customer

    • "The Revolv app and hub don’t work anymore, but we are offering a refund for your Revolv hub. To get your refund, please email us at help@revolv.com."

MetaMind

Picasa

  • 2016-05-01 Picasa
    • Google announced on 2016-02-12 that it will be retired in favor of Google Photos. The desktop software will no longer be maintained after 2016-03-15 and changes to the web albums will begin 2016-05-01. [28]
    • 2016-08-02 update: The album archive page for Picasa Web Albums is now live. You can view, download, or delete your Picasa Web Albums data on this page: https://get.google.com/albumarchive

Livemocha

Experience Project

  • 2016-04-21 Experience Project, a site that asked users to contribute anonymous personal stories and confessions. On 2016-04-21, they will prevent new signups. After that date, they will allow one month for users to export their content before the site is "frozen". The reasons cited for the site shutdown is a combination of attacks on user privacy and being overrun with "bad apples" (malicious users, trolls etc.) Blog post (archived)

Coinkite Bitcoin web wallet

Yahoo BOSS hosted search

  • 2016-03-31 Yahoo BOSS hosted search [29]

    • At Yahoo, we’re always looking for ways to streamline and simplify products for our customers. With this focus in mind, we will discontinue BOSS JSON Search API, BOSS Placefinder API, BOSS Placespotter API and as well BOSS Hosted Search, on March 31, 2016.

    • Moving forward, customers can instead use YPA, a Javascript Solution that provides algorithmic web results with search ads for publishers who manage their own search engine results pages (SERPs)

    • Access to the BOSS will continue until March 31, 2016.

Dropbox Carousel

Shelfari

  • 2016-03-16 Amazon-owned Shelfari—a silo for logging and sharing what books people are reading—is shutting down and merging with Goodreads. There's a CSV exporter. Announcement blog post
    • As of 2016-06-13 shelfari.com redirects to Goodreads with a banner at the top "Shelfari has merged with Goodreads. Take a look around and let us know if you have any questions or need any assistance."

dotCloud

  • 2016-02-29 dotCloud Platform as a Service [31]
    • "The dotCloud platform as a service (PaaS), which developers can use to build and run apps without worrying about the underlying infrastructure, will be shutting down on February 29."
    • 2016-03-29 confirmed dead

Mailbox

Google Code

  • 2016-01-25 Google Code [33]
    • "March 12, 2015 - New project creation disabled."
    • "August 24, 2015 - The site goes read-only. You can still checkout/view project source, issues, and wikis."
    • "January 25, 2016 - The project hosting service is closed. You will be able to download a tarball of project source, issues, and wikis. These tarballs will be available throughout the rest of 2016."
    • From the comments: "I work on Google Code, and we will be putting a service in place to redirect deep links to project homepages, issues, etc. to their new locations."

Plancast

Yo

  • Yo, an app that let you send the word Yo to people in your contacts list, shut down in 2016.
  • At one point, Yo raised $1.5 million in venture capital at a valuation of $5-$10 million, according to Business Insider.

2015

Rdio

  • 2015-12-22 Rdio [35]
    • Filed for bankruptcy 2015-11-16.
    • Bankrupt and assets being acquired by Pandora. [36]
    • Rdio blog on 2015-11-16 [37]:

      Rdio's service will not be interrupted today. We will have more updates in the coming weeks on what this process means for your Rdio account, but for the time being the service continues unchanged.

    • As of 2016-02-12, rdio.com indicates "After logging in with your Rdio account below, you will be able to download an archive of your collection and take a look back at your life on Rdio."

Prismatic

  • 2015-12-20 Prismatic [38]. "[...] our iOS, Android and web news reader products will no longer be available and access to our Interest Graph APIs will be discontinued."
    • As of 2016-02-12, getprismatic.com is blank due to DNS failure


Lumia Storyteller

  • 2015-10-30 Microsoft closes the "Lumia Storyteller" page which could be used to publish photo stories from the Lumia smartphones.
    • This was announced on 2015-09-04; users had ~60 days to backup their data

We’ve said goodbye to Lumia Storyteller. Online stories previously shared here are no longer available. Thanks for using Storyteller!

ReadingPack

  • 2015-10-?? There was apparently no notification about shutdown or ability to export data announced. Time of site death is based on the relative time of their Twitter account's last tweet on 24 Sep 2015. The demise was directly confirmed on 10/29/16. ReadingPack was one of many bookmarking and read later silo services that allowed sharing to other social networks, but also served as a social service within itself for discovering interesting material to read.

Comcast/Xfinity Personal Web Pages

  • 2015-10-08 Comcast/Xfinity Personal Web Pages [39]
    • announced around 2015-07-06
    • As of 2015-11-20, Comcast Personal Web Pages return a 404 with the message "Error: Your request of "[username].home.comcast.net" was not found on redirect platform."

Mozilla Appmaker

  • 2015-05-04 Mozilla leaves Popcorn, a webmaker app, available but pulsl supports. [40]
  • 205-09-30 Mozilla discontinues and shut's down the project in favor of a new Android based webmaker program [41]

    • As our tools evolve, we will no longer support Appmaker and Popcorn Maker. Instead, we’re focusing our efforts on Webmaker for Android, which empowers smartphone users to create local content and read, write and participate online.

Mozilla Popcorn

  • 2015-05-04 Mozilla leaves Popcorn, a webmaker app, available but pulls supports. [42]

    • We also want to share news about Popcorn Maker. While the tool remains available, our team will no longer be providing support.

  • 205-09-30 Mozilla discontinues and shut's down project in favor of a new Android based webmaker program [43]

    • As our tools evolve, we will no longer support Appmaker and Popcorn Maker. Instead, we’re focusing our efforts on Webmaker for Android, which empowers smartphone users to create local content and read, write and participate online.

Yahoo Pipes

  • 2015-08-30 read-only; 2015-09-30 closed. Yahoo Pipes [44]

    • Pipes creation will not be supported as of Aug. 30 this year. Pipes infrastructure will run until Sept. 30, 2015 in read-only mode to help developers migrate their data. Please visit http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes for additional details.

Plug.dj

  • 2015-09-29 plug.dj [45]
  • Closed the same day as announcement.

    • Unfortunately, we didn’t get enough support through our subscribers to keep the site running month to month. We’re truly thankful for the donations we received that helped keep the site up until now. If it wasn’t for you, the site would have shut down 3 weeks ago. For the people who are currently subscribed, all active subscriptions will be cancelled today. At 3PM PDT we’ll be shutting our doors.

This Is My Jam

  • 2015-09-26 This Is My Jam [46]

    • This Is My Jam will become a read-only time capsule on September 26, 2015. This means you won’t be able to post anymore, but you’ll be able to browse a new archive version of the site.

    • Your profile data (jams, loves, etc) will also be exportable in a few formats, including text lists; the read-only API will stay online for developers who want to play; we’ll also be open sourcing as much code as we can on Github.

Kippt

  • 2015-09-06 Kippt was a social bookmarking service founded in 2011 which has helped hundreds of thousands of people store and share knowledge, ideas and inspiration from around the web.
  • 2014-05-06 Announcement of closure
    • Export Options – Including a Kippt Export Browser: Kippt's users can export their data which we made available in three different formats (Web browser, standard Netscape bookmarks export and JSON).
    • Exports will be available until April 2016 but we recommend downloading your data today. To keep collecting important thing on the web and using your data, we recommend Pinboard, Dropmark and Pocket. You'll find instructions how to import your data in your export.

Google+ Photos

  • 2015-08-01 - Google+ Photos begins to shut down. Google+ Photos was a photo service integrated into Google+. In May of 2015, Google created a new photos product that had no relationship with Google+. Since all information was migrated, and it is still a service of the same company, incorporating many of the same features, it could be considered more of a 'spinoff'.

Emojli

Google Moderator

Yahoo Maps

  • 2015-06-30 Yahoo Maps [47]

    • The Yahoo Maps site will close at the end of June. However, in the context of Yahoo search and on several other Yahoo properties including Flickr, we will continue to support maps. We made this decision to better align resources to Yahoo’s priorities as our business has evolved since we first launched Yahoo Maps eight years ago.

  • 2015-07-22 http://maps.yahoo.com now redirects to a Yahoo search for "maps"

Balanced Payments

  • 2015-06-11 Balanced Payments [48]

    • We started building a payments service for marketplaces in 2011. We were shocked with the state of payments at the time, and the pains a marketplace had to go through. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to reach the escape velocity necessary to be a large, innovative, independent player in the payments space and have decided not to continue building Balanced. We reached out to Stripe and have been working with them to provide a smooth path forward for our customers. Our full API and dashboard will be available until June 11, 2015, and support for issuing refunds, querying transactions, and fighting chargebacks will continue until October 9, 2015.

Branch

Gitorious

  • 2015-05-31 Gitorious [52]
    • Users have until the end of May 2015 to import their repositories into Gitlab.
    • See https://about.gitlab.com/2015/03/03/gitlab-acquires-gitorious/ for the announcement
    • As of 2015-06-04, gitorious.org still lists a message at the top of the page indicating it will be shut down "end of May"
    • As of 2016-10-27, gitorious.org indicates "This is a read-only mirror of the former gitorious.org code hosting website"

Lyrk.de

  • 2015-04-30 Lyrk.de map tile service (copy of email sent to tommorris)
    • "We are really proud to have created an OpenStreetMap map style that has raised the bar in terms of accuracy and visual quality, but weren't able to create a sustainable business."

Grooveshark

Grooveshark (grooveshark.com) was a streaming music service.

  • 2015-04-30 Grooveshark shutdown [53]
    • 1000s user profiles lost[54]
    • ???? listening history lost

Google OpenID

According to Google's Timetable. Unsure if actual shut down dates differed. This was only noticed after a tweet lamenting the takedown

  • 2015-04-20 OpenID 2.0 is shut down. A static error page will be displayed on all requests.
  • 2015-03-23 Grace period for developers using the openid_shutdown_ack parameter ends, warning is shown and auto-approval turned off for all applications.
  • 2015-02-23 Auto-approval is turned off, users must consent on each request. Developers passing openid_shutdown_ack are unaffected.
  • 2015-01-12 Auto-approval is progressivly disabled for more and more users, these users will be forced to re-consent. Developers passing openid_shutdown_ack are unaffected.
  • 2014-12-01 Auto-approval is disabled for a small number of requests on an intermittent basis, some users will be forced to re-consent.
  • 2014-11-18 User-facing warning message may be shown on consent dialogs, directing users to this help article. Developers may suppress deprecation warnings by adding the openid_shutdown_ack parameter, as specified above.

Trovebox

  • 2015-03-31 Trovebox [55]
    • Users have until March 15, 2015 to grab an archive of their photos before the service shuts.
    • The service was open source though, so you can keep running your instance yourself. It will also be continued by at least one IndieHoster.

FriendFeed

  • 2015-04-10 FriendFeed shutdown(per Wikipedia article).
  • 2015-04-09 shutdown expected[56]
    • ". . . the number of people using FriendFeed has been steadily declining and the community is now just a fraction of what it once was. Given this, we've decided that it's time to start winding things down. Beginning today, we will no longer accept new signups. You will be able to view your posts, messages, and photos until April 9th. On April 9th, we'll be shutting down FriendFeed and it will no longer be available."
    • Via http://recode.net/2015/03/09/facebook-shuts-down-friendfeed/
    • ???? FriendFeed user profiles lost
    • ???? FriendFeed posts lost, permalinks broken

tvtag

  • 2015-01-01 tvtag (tvtag.com) shut down.[57][58] "Effective January 1st, tvtag is offline. Thanks for tagging along!"[59] It was for checking into TV shows.
    • "If you're interested in requesting a copy of your data, please email your username in the subject line to datarequest@tvtag.com"
    • ???? tvtag user profiles lost
    • ???? tvtag checkins lost

2014

Yahoo! Directory

  • 2014-12-31 Yahoo! Directory [60] [61]
    • 2015-01-19 dir.yahoo.com and directory.yahoo.com redirect to business.yahoo.com, still appear to be visible but perhaps not changing.
    • 2017-10-31 dir.yahoo.com no longer resolves

OpenSocial

  • 2014-12-?? OpenSocial shut down their site opensocial.org when they transferred everything to W3C and redirected all opensocial.org URLs to a W3C blog post.
    • ??? # of blog posts, comments, etc. lost at opensocial.org

Netflix API

  • 2014-11-14 Netflix shut down their API.
    • Announced in a blog post 2014-06-13 [62]:

      To better focus our efforts and to align them with the needs of our global member base, we will be retiring the public API program. Effective on November 14, 2014, public API developers will no longer be able to access Netflix content. All requests to the public API will return 404 errors.

43things

  • 2014-10-28 43things, a website used to collect and and set personal goals, is shutting down:

Ohlife

  • 2014-10-11 Ohlife.com, a small free service allowing people to write a letter to their future self [63]. Users were told that they could save their entries to a text file and given a link to download those files before the shutdown date.

Petition Online

  • 2014-09-30 Petitiononline.com shutdown by owner Change.org (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PetitionOnline)
    • As of 2019-05-31 the site http://www.petitiononline.com/ (archived) still says
      The End

      We'd like to thank all of you for your participation in the Petition Online community and how you used it to change the world. Sadly, the continued cost and maintenance of the site has made it no longer viable, especially with other alternatives out there.

    • ???? Petitions lost (thousands, with 10s of millions of signatures as of 2008 per Wikipedia)

MyFamily

  • 2014-09-30 MyFamily.com shutdown by owner Ancestry.com (Slate.com: Deleting the Family Tree: MyFamily shuttered: Ancestry.com deleted 10 years of family history)
    • 2014-06-04 MyFamily shutdown announced[64](see comments on that blog post for user outrage)
    • 2014-06-05 MyFamily shutdown announced to happen 2014-09-05[65]
    • Export was photos only, all text / correspondence lost[66]
    • Over 1.5 million (as of 2004!) user profiles lost [67]
    • Exaggerated claim:

      “[u]nlimited storage space and SiteSafeSM technology keep all of your family memories safe and secure. No matter what.”

      [68]

markbox-io

  • 2014-08-?? markbox.io, a small paid hosting service shut down when its single server "simply went away". The guts of the service were simplified and open-sourced as boxpub.

Svpply

  • 2014-08-31: Svpply will be sunset by eBay.
    • "We regret to announce that Svpply.com and its associated apps — Svpply and Want by Svpply — will retire on August 31st."
    • Export of link data added to the site is available from users' account settings.
    • In response, the founder launched a Kickstarter campaign to build a new version of the site, called Very Goods. It was successfully funded on 2014-07-21.
    • 2015-01-19 svpply.com simply redirects to www.ebay.com, and pages inside redirect as well, e.g. their sunset announcement svpply.com/sunset redirects to pages.ebay.com/sunset (a 404).

Fotopedia

  • 2014-08-10 Fotopedia photo encyclopedia and photo album host to be shut down
    • Announced 2014-07-31: ". . . your data will be available to download until August 10, 2014. After this date, all photos and data will be permanently deleted from our servers."

Readmill

  • 2014-07-01 Readmill "app will no longer be available ... All of your books, reading data and account information will be permanently deleted. User information will not be archived, shared or saved in any way."[69].

    • Export data includes books, followers, followings, readings, highlights, reviews, comments and likes on your highlights and reviews, and highlights you liked.

    • ???? Readmill profiles being lost, including followers/followings lists, readings, highlights, reviews, comments, likes, comments and likes on your highlights and reviews, and highlights liked
    • ???? purchased ebooks lost

Repost-us

  • 2014-07-31 Repost.us "On July 31 2014 we will shutdown the Repost api servers and all embedded content will cease to be available"[70]
    • Will redirect API requests to a service that returns errors (to help callers avoid hanging) through 2014-12-31
    • Link shortener s.tt remains active through the end of the year 2014-12-31

Springpad

myOpenID

2014-06-19 myOpenID.com finally disappeared according to Archive.org.

Codespaces

  • 2014-06-17 Codespaces.com experienced a DDOS and an unauthorized person gained access to their EC2 control panel. From http://www.codespaces.com:

    • . . . removed all EBS snapshots, S3 buckets, all AMI's, some EBS instances and several machine instances.

    • In summary, most of our data, backups, machine configurations and offsite backups were either partially or completely deleted.

    • Code Spaces will not be able to operate beyond this point, the cost of resolving this issue to date and the expected cost of refunding customers who have been left without the service they paid for will put Code Spaces in a irreversible position both financially and in terms of on going credibility.

      As such at this point in time we have no alternative but to cease trading and concentrate on supporting our affected customers in exporting any remaining data they have left with us.

Justin-tv

  • 2014-06-15 Justin.tv no longer archiving live broadcasts and will be deleting all archived videos with two weeks notice.
    • "All VODs will be removed after June 15, 2014. We recommend downloading your recorded videos before the date."
      • Initially this reported "June 8, 2014", but as of 2014-06-24 the page says June 15.
    • 2014-05-29 https://help.justin.tv/entries/41803380-Changes-to-Video-Archive-System
    • Justin.tv shut down and transferred all focus to gaming-related content platform Twitch Interactive. Videos on Justin.tv are no longer accessible for download. Video archiving and VODs was removed on June 15, 2014.
    • Accounts only saved for users who used their justin.tv account to login to Twitch, or signed up for Twitch. Users still using their Justin.tv logins to log into Twitch will need to complete a form to have account transferred to Twitch for full site use.Justin.tv will move your account within 72 hours. Request to transfer account must be received on or before Friday, September 5, 2014. The Justin.tv site reminds users "Twitch is a site for gaming-related content only" and that all content posted to Twitch must follow Twitch TOS.
    • Justin.tv accounts tranferred to Twitch will keep the username and email address associated with the Justin.tv Accounts will continue to follow any currently followed Twitch channel, but not any JTV channel, unless that channel is also transferred to Twitch. Users will NOT keep JTV followers, unless those followers have also transferred to Twitch. VODs will not be transferred to Twitch.
    • Active Justin.tv Pro Account Users will be refunded. An email to members communicated the cancellation and refund process.
    • Mobile apps, APIs, broadcast tool, and all other components of the site no longer work. Users were referred to YouTube, Ustream and Livestream for live video content.
    • ???? Lost videos
    • ???? Lost user accounts
    • Archive.org downloaded all Justin.tv videos with more than 10 views. https://archive.org/details/justintv Archive.org also took requests to download and archive specific videos by request.

Ubuntu One

  • 2014-06-01 Ubuntu One cloud sync service run by Canonical, makers of Ubuntu, to be discontinued.
    • ". . . user content will remain available for download until 31 July, at which time it will be deleted."

Spreadly

  • 2014-06-?? Spreadly social sharing platform
    • Service was shut down because company closed. All data was deleted without providing any kind of export.

Editorially

  • 2014-05-30 Editorially collaborative writing and editing platform
    • Service will be shut down; did not get enough users to make it sustainable. Users have until shut down date to export their data. Archive will include a plain text file for every version of every document you have access to; it will also include comments, version notes, tags, activity, and other metadata about your documents. That metadata will be provided in the form of a YAML file. https://editorially.com/help
    • 2014-06-24: Announced that Editorially has been acquired by Vox Media and they want to "release parts of the code via an open source license." Interestingly, "Absolutely no user data — no names, email addresses, documents, or any other user data — will be transferred to Vox Media."
    • 2014-12-31: "Remaining data backups will be permanently deleted" (until then "users may request a backup of their data by emailing support@editorially.com" - http://editorially.com/ )

Loom

  • 2014-05-16 Loom cloud-based photo storage
    • Announced being acquired by DropBox 2014-04-17. [72] [73]
    • No longer enrolling new users. Existing Loom users can continue to use our service until May 16, 2014
    • 2014-05-31, 2015-01-19 site appears to still be up for existing users. - Tantek

Qik

Zootool

  • 2014-03-15 Zootool.com "shutting down"[74]. Site already has goodbye message as of 2014-02-10. Email also sent to users with same message dated 2014-02-10.
    • Deletion coming:

      On March, 15th all data and images will be deleted forever.

    • 150,000+ user profiles will be lost
    • "millions of collected items" will be lost
    • Amazing insight quote in shutdown notice:

      Zootool made us realize that the general idea of running a central service is nothing we believe in any longer. Your data should belong to you and shouldn't be stored on our servers. You shouldn't have to rely on us or on any other service to keep your data secure and online.

    • Data export promise:

      You will have the chance to export your data over the next weeks. We offer export for bookmark files, which can be used to import your bookmarks in all common browsers and most other bookmark services. You can find the export in your Settings.

    • 2014-02-14 Read only mode expected:

      Starting by the end of this week we are going to switch Zootool into read-only mode. You will still be able to browse your collection, but you will not be able to add new bookmarks.

Vizify

My Opera

  • 2014-03-03 My Opera shutdown by Opera Software.[75]
    • was launched in 2001
    • ??? user profiles lost
    • ??? permalinks lost

Donna

Ptch

  • 2014-01-02 Ptch shut down. Ptch Joins Yahoo. Instructions provided for how to save user content.

2013

Hyves

2013-12-31 Hyves, formerly the major social network of the Netherlands, turned into a gaming site with all new accounts. Announced closing 2013-10-31. Offered download until 2013-12-31.

ClaimID

2013-12-12 ClaimID "ceased operations"[76] after "7 years, 6 months, and 20 days of service"[77].

  • 100,000s profiles / identities lost

HipGeo

2013-12-01 HipGeo travel journal app that allowed people to track their travels and location. Site replaced with a WordPress installation with one post and a default comment. All permalinks from Google search results for the brand broken [78]. ??? profiles lost. Shutdown announcement: [79]

Everpix

2013-11-05 Everpix photo content hosting silo announces shutdown, immediately goes "read-only", and says they will "email instructions to all Everpix users on how to download their photos".[80][81][82] [83]

Sold

2013-11-05- Sold, a service to help people sell things, was acquired by Dropbox and shut down. *http://usesold.com/

iGoogle

2013-11-01 iGoogle shut down What's happening to iGoogle? The mobile version was retired on 2012-07-31.

Dopplr

2013-11-01 Dopplr discontinued (home page and [84]).

DarQroom

2013-10-11 DarQroom started as a free photograph storage / publication / printing platform until the end announced by Thierry Ferey - former co-founder and CEO of DarQroom

Yahoo Term Extraction API

2013-09-28 Yahoo! Term Extraction API (citation needed)

  • We are eliminating direct access to the Yahoo! Term Extraction API and as of September 28, will require developers to go through YQL. We encourage all existing users of the Term Extraction Legacy API to migrate to YQL requests by September 28. You can use the YQL forums for any questions you might have about migrating to YQL. If you are already using the Term Extraction API via YQL, you don’t need to take any action.

Net Magazine

2013-09-19- .Net Magazine, a web industry magazine, merged with creative bloq

  • www.shanehudson.net/2013/09/19/stop-deleting-content/
  • how many URLs lost? apparently top 500 articles out of > 9000 were moved with proper redirects, working on moving others

GeoURL

2013-09-01 GeoURL 503 Service Unavailable

  • GeoURL is (was) a location-to-URL reverse directory. This will allow you to find URLs by their proximity to a given location
  • http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/geourl reports "Organization closed on September 1, 2013"
  • At least these two domains: geourl.org & geourl.com

Yahoo Astrid

2013-08-05 Yahoo! Astrid (task tracking service)

Yahoo Local API

2013-09-28 Yahoo! Local API

Alice

2013-08-21- Alice.com a grocery delivery service, shuts down. Launch article from 2009. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10270643-2.html Announcement of Shutdown on YCombinator. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6250893

  • how many user accounts were lost?
  • as any user content lost?
  • were any public permalinks to user content lost?

Google Latitude

2013-08-09 Google Latitude retired[86].

Silent Circle

2013-08-09 Silent Circle Maryland-based encrypted private email provider preemptively shut down following suit of Lavabit. Two Providers of Secure E-Mail Shut Down, Silent Circle Preemptively Shuts Down Encrypted Email Service To Prevent NSA Spying

Lavabit

2013-08-08 Lavabit Texas-based encrypted private email provider shut down due to its affiliation with being whistleblower Edward Snowden's email provider since 2010. Lavabit's founder Ladar Levison decided to shut down the service after a cost benefit analysis on whether to shut down the service or become "complicit in crimes against the American people". Lavabit, email service Snowden reportedly used, abruptly shuts down

Snapjoy

2013-07-24 Snapjoy shut down after being acquired by Dropbox. article

Yahoo Neighbors Beta

2013-07-08 Yahoo! Neighbors Beta (was local.yahoo.com/neighbors) shutdown.[87][88]

  • Unknown number of user questions & answers lost.

Google Reader

2013-07-01 Google Reader shut down.[89][90]

  • ???? number of (users) / user feed reading lists lost
  • ???? number of saved/faved reading items lost

MySpace User Blogs

2013-06-12 Myspace.com User blogs after MySpace redesign. MySpace Punishes Its Few Remaining Friends By Vanishing Their Blogs

Blogtv.com

2013-03-13 Blogtv.com shut down after purchase by YouTube and merged into YouNow.

Upcoming

2013-04-30 Upcoming.org after being acquired by Yahoo

Posterous

2013-04-30 Posterous.com Thanks from Posterous after being acquired by Twitter

EveryBlock

2013-02-07 EveryBlock.com ultralocal news/information site shutdown with "zero warning". Farewell, neighbors

  • ???? friends lists lost. [92][93]
  • ???? discussion threads lost. (ibid)

Yahoo Voice Phone In Out

2013-01-30 Yahoo! Voice Phone In and Phone Out feature shut down

Mixel

2013-01-22 Mixel [94] - social network shut down. (Mixel has been acquired by Etsy)

  • App removed from Apple's App store, network shutting down early September (2012-09).
  • current Mixels can be shared, bulk export functionality on its way
  • ???? user profiles lost

2012

Wunderkit

Yahoo Messenger Services

Tungle

Twistory

  • 2012-12-03 Twistory [98]
    • Not accepting new users as of 2012-11-07
    • Paying users were no longer be billed, and had "several months" to download a .csv of their data

Batch com

  • 2012-10-31 Batch.com photo sharing site shut down. article

DailyBooth

  • 2012-10-12 DailyBooth photo sharing site shut down. article

OStatus org

  • 2012-10-09 OStatus original site ostatus.org died when it was redirected to a W3C Community Group link and none of the ostatus.org URLs (specifications, blog posts, etc.) were preserved/recreated at the new destination.

Webshots

  • 2012-10-02 Webshots photo hosting site relaunched as "Smile", removing photos unless users intervened. article

Google Knol

Picplz

  • 2012-09-02 picplz - last day to supposedly login and download photo archives

iGoogle mobile

KLIK

  • 2012-07-20 KLIK - last day to login and download photo archives
    • Going down with the Face.com API due to acquisition by Facebook.
    • 2013-08-01 domain not found

Plazes

Apple MobileMe Gallery iDisk iWeb

Tabblo =

  • 2012-05-30 Tabblo shutdown by HP. Was at http://tabblo.com
    • ??? number of photos lost (Archive Team has "almost everything" and is posting them to Archive.org)
    • ??? number of "tabblos" (collection of photos) lost
    • ??? number of links to photos / tabblos broke
    • 2012-01-31 All original Tabblo employees gone (from HP) as well as those they directly hired.[103]
    • 2007-03-23 HP acquired Tabblo[104].
      • "five million pictures" (at time of acquisition)
    • 2006-06 Tabblo launched. (ibid)

Google Wave

  • 2012-04-30 Google Wave shut down.[105],[106]
    • 2012-01-31 Google Wave went read-only.(ibid)
    • ??? number of Google Waves lost
      • ??? number of migrated Etherpads lost
    • ??? number of links to Google Waves broke
    • 2010-08-04 Shutdown implied: "We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year..."[107]

Gowalla

Google Friend Connect

  • 2012-03-01 Google Friend Connect retired for all non-Blogger sites - was at www.google.com/friendconnect
    • Export your community data - unknown how long it will be supported.
      • limitation: "Export Community is limited to your site’s first 2000 members" (ibid)
    • encouraged to transition to Google+: "create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on your site".
    • 2008-05-12 Google Friend Connect launched.[108][109]

2011

Google Buzz read only

  • 2011-12-15 Google Buzz put into read only mode (Buzz API shut down), subsequently killed in 2014
    • ??? number of Google Buzz posts lost
    • ??? number of Google Buzz user profiles lost
    • ??? links to Google Base posts broke
    • 2014-08-16 (or earlier) Google Buzz permalinks stopped working, starting 404ing.[110]
    • 2011-12-15 Google Buzz permalinks switched to read-only mode.[111][112]
    • 2011-10-14 Google announced the shut down with only 2 months notice[113][114][115].
      • From Gizmodo: Gizmodo RIP Google Buzz

        I'd say I'm going to miss Buzz, but to be honest I had all but forgotten about it. Oh well. If you need me, I'll be hanging out on Google Wave.

        emphasis added.

Trim URL shortener

  • 2011-07-11 tr.im URL shortener failed.[116]
    • ??? number of tr.im short links lost
    • ??? number of links to tr.im URLs broken (across the web, Twitter, etc.)
    • 2009-12-31 redirecting promised thru this date (and worked)
    • 2009-08-10 went read only. short link creation disabled.[117][118]

Google Real-Time Search

Google Base

YIID

Windows Live Spaces

2010

Brightkite

  • 2010-12-10 Brightkite shut down - was at brightkite.com
    • ??? number of user profiles lost
    • ??? number of user check-in permalinks lost

Cliqset

Vox

  • 2010-09-30 Vox shut down - was at vox.com.[120]
    • 2010-09-15 Vox went read-only (ibid)
    • ??? number of Vox blogs / posts lost.
      • ??? number of migrated Pownce profiles lost.[121]
    • ??? links to Vox posts broke.

Magnolia

icanhaz

  • 2010-06 icanhaz.com shut down URI shortener
    • Had previously stopped accepting new URIs but continued to serve old ones
    • 55437 short URIs lost

Etherpad com

  • 2010-05-15 Etherpad.com offline taken offline by Google. (including their own blog post of their transition: http://etherpad.com/ep/blog/posts/transition-update). Etherpad went read-only a month beforehand (2010-04-14).
    • ??? number of Etherpad pages lost.
    • ??? links to Etherpad pages broke.
    • Migration advised: to Google Wave. "Current EtherPad users will also be getting invites to try Google Wave in the near future..."[122], "EtherPad users got invites to use Wave..."[123]

Twine

  • 2010-05-14 Twine taken offline at twine.com by Evri and redirected to evri.com.
    • 2010-03-11 Evry acquired Twine.
    • ??? number of Twine pages lost.
    • ??? links to Twine pages broke.
    • 2008-10-21 Twine launched publicly

2009

  • 2009-12-31 Radio Userland service closing. [124]
    • ?? number of blog posts lost
    • ?? hosted comments and trackbacks lost
  • 2009-12-29 Haloscan commenting service shut down.[125]
    • ??? number of comments lost
    • ??? number of links to comments broken
    • ??? number of blogs with embedded Haloscan commenting broken
  • 2009-08-24 Microsoft Popfly went offline
    • Warning given on 2009-07-16
    • ??? number of user-created sites gone
  • 2009-06-11 Hello.com shut down by Google
    • announcement
    • "We're shutting down Hello to focus our efforts on the development of Picasa and Picasa Web Albums and other photo sharing efforts, including Talk and the new OpenSocial effort."
  • 2009-04 Dodgeball.com shut down by Google
    • ??? number of Dodgeball profiles gone.
    • ??? number of Dodgeball venues gone (user created)
    • ??? number of venue reviews gone (user created)
    • 2009-02-28(?) went read-only at "end of February"[128]
    • 2009-01-14 Shut down announced by Google[129]
    • Subsequent site: Google Latitude.[130]
  • 2009-02 Pownce.com went offline. Was previously scheduled to go offline 2008-12-15, but voluntary code patches/contributions from Tantek helped them to transition to public read-only access (to increase chance of archival of content) on that date for about 2 months.
    • 2008-12-15 went read-only.
    • ??? number of Pownce profiles gone.
    • ??? links to Pownce posts broken.
    • Migration Advised: import to Vox: "Six Apart is encouraging Pownce members to join its blog platform Vox".[131]
  • 2009-01-30 Ma.gnolia.com shutdown.[132]. Ma.gnolia.com suffered catastrophic database corruption and lost all user data.

2008

  • 2008-03 Consumating.com shut down by CNET.[133]
    • ??? number of Consumating profiles/posts lost.
    • ??? links to Consumating posts broken.
  • 2008-10-31 AOL Hometown shutdown [134] by AOL.
    • At least 14 million sites lost. [135] 2002 stats estimate 14 million sites on Hometown that year.
    • "Well it looks like AOL did it again. Another sneaky move. The Hometown pages all seem to have disappeared. [...] I only discovered this morning that AOL pulled the plug on Oct 31st, 2008." - taimantis.com, November 11th, 2008[26]
    • "Lots of information on AOL Hometown very important to people who put hard work into these efforts is being lost, possibly without notice." - David Dillard, "Meet the Googles" Visits the Grave Site of AOL Hometown to Ponder Its Past All to Short Life[27]
    • "I was surprised to find that AOL just shut down their homepage service on Oct. 31st. There were many great websites created through that service that simply no longer exist." - Dr. Jitters, November 12, 2008[28]
    • "I knew this was coming, I just didn't know the day. I tried, with the help of some great people, to get AOL to donate ficlets to a non-profit, with no luck. I asked them just to give it to me outright since I invented it and built it with the help of some spectacular developers and designers. All of this has gone nowhere. [...] I'm disappointed that AOL's turned its back on the community, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised." - Kevin Lawver, Ficlets Est Mort[29]
    • "A terrible thing happened recently. You might have missed it. AOL Hometown, which itself was actually a combination of a bunch of previously acquired websites, shut down. [...] It's all fine and good, those readers who sneer and say 'you get what you pay for' and 'ha ha, losers'. But the fact is, these people were brought online and given a place for themselves. Like a turkey drawn with a child's hand or a collection of snow globes collected from a life well-lived, these sites were hand-made, done by real people, with no agenda or business plan or knowledge, exactly, of how everything under the webservers worked. They were paying for their accounts, make no mistake – this was often provided to them as a tool combined with their AOL accounts. Some were absorbed from other companies as AOL purchased them. Some of these websites had existed for a decade. [...] We're talking about terabytes, terabytes of data, of hundreds of thousands of man-hours of work, crafted by people, an anthropological bonanza and a critical part of online history, wiped out because someone had to show that they were cutting costs this quarter." - Jason Scott, Eviction, or the Coming Datapocalypse [136]

2007

Fucked Company

Per Wikipedia, in 2007 August, Fuckedcompany.com's home page was changed to read

R.I.P. 2000-2007.

As of 2018-029, only the home page and http://fuckedcompany.com/servermon/ are returned for a site:fuckedcompany.com web search. All other attempts at loading various pages at that domain return a "403 Forbidden".

Fuckedcompany was a popular site-deaths (actual, impending, at-risk) tracking site near the end and after the first dotcom boom.

  • ???? number of posts lost
  • ???? number of company profiles lost
  • ...

It appears the Internet Archive has (as of 2022 or perhaps earlier) stopped showing fuckedcompany.com captures:

However the US Library of Congress apparently has a few snapshots of it from 2002 and earlier, e.g.:

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

  • 2001 Desktop.com shutdown[137] suddenly, without users being able to download their documents.
    • ??? user profiles lost
    • ??? user documents lost
  • 2001 SixDegrees.com (wikipedia), one of the first social networking services

2000

  • 2000-07-02 PlanetAll shutdown[138] by Amazon.
    • 1.5 million user profiles lost including address books, calendars, buddy lists. (ibid)
    • 2000-06-06 Amazon told users "PlanetAll.com will be going away"(ibid)
    • 1998-08-04 Amazon bought PlanetAll [139]
    • 1996-11 PlanetAll launched[140]

Unknown Year

  • Wannadoo/orange personal sites
  • Zooomr.com photo sharing / flickr competitor
  • yfrog photo service for Twitter, owned by ImageShack. http://www.yfrog.com redirects to https://imageshack.com/lost. The service was very popular, along with TwitPic, in the early years of Twitter. Resurfaced images via apps like Timehop appear as broken links.
  • WebDAV Resources (webdav.org, on the internet archive) was a site documenting all things WebDAV and hosted implementations as well as a test suite (Litmus, also on the internet archive).

Related

Brainstorming

Publish on silo.rip

  • Create a MW template for listing shutdowns
  • Add h-event markup to the MW template, noting the date, company, and description of the shutdown. (maybe logo too somehow?)
  • Aaron Parecki can write a parser that takes the list of h-events and reformats them nicely to fit on silo.rip

See Also

Retrieved from "https://indieweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=site-deaths&oldid=98396"