Aiming for the stars and not quite making it, the ambitious App.net has finally officially shut down. Its timely rise and fall comes as highly symbolic as its once rival, Twitter, continues to struggle, years later, with monetization, content management and harassment.
Today’s announcement of its closure isn’t hugely surprisingly since App.net had been in “maintenance mode” since May 2014. CEO Dalton Caldwell and his co-founder Bryan Berg put the social network on autopilot after it failed to generate the revenue necessary to support a full-time staff. Caldwell subsequently took on a new role as a partner at Y Combinator.
