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June 3, 2006

Fold.com…Folds

Michael Arrington

72 comments »

Well, the inevitable is starting to happen - a few new web startups are starting to close up shop as they find that building an application is a lot easier than getting users to try it out, and keep coming back. Fold.com, an Ajax home page, has folded.

Perhaps Fold.com’s destiny was decided the day the founder picked the domain name for his new service, or perhaps the recent funding of two similar companies (Netvibes and Pageflakes) plus looming competition from Live.com and Google IG did them in. Either way, Fold.com is no more. Details are on the Fold.com blog - the founder is “busy working on other stuff”.

My original post on Fold.com was titled “Fold.com - Why?“. It was written during a period of time when a new Ajax home page was launching nearly every week. In that post I listed 12 Fold.com competitors, a sign that the market was saturated. One of those 12 competitors, Zoozio, has since changed both its name and its business model. Another, Wrickr, is yet to launch. The rest seem to be hanging in there.

Fold.com is now just a parked page at a domain reseller, looking for a buyer. Four letter, dictionary word domain names are valuable assets. I just hope the ghost of Fold.com doesn’t haunt the next service to brand themselves under this domain.

In anticipation of the inevitable thinning of new web startups, I’ve added the tag “DEADPOOL” to our Company & Product Index. Hopefully we won’t be using that tag too often in the near future.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 at 10:00 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Max

    June 3rd, 2006 at 10:35 am

    I actually liked Fold.com a lot out of all the different AJAX desktops. It had a clean interface and some cool stuff on it. Oh well, I expect another AJAX website to be made in the near future to replace it.

    And Mr. Arrington, on the topic of AJAX stuff (I know it’s not really on topic :P) why don’t you integrate some AJAX into TechCrunch? That would be kick-ass. :D

  2. Brian Benzinger

    June 3rd, 2006 at 11:18 am

    Hrm. Interesting. I thought he made a blog post the other day about making updates to the system and it will be down for a little while as he works on it (I’m subscribed to his development feed). Maybe he simply forgot to renew his domain? I almost did that the other day… SW turned one May 30th! If Fold did… Fold, that’s sad news because it was a pretty neat system. Nice catch. ;-)

  3. Pat Matthews

    June 3rd, 2006 at 12:03 pm

    This is too bad, but I think it’s inevitable that a lot of these companies will fail… remember what I said back in September:

    http://www.patsweblog.com/blog.....e_dif.html

    ;-o

  4. jme giffo

    June 3rd, 2006 at 12:52 pm

    Max: how would ajax improve TechCrunch? techcrunch is already kick-ass, we are here for the content not the feel of the site, or am i wrong?

    with regards to fold.com: why give up? do a nintendo, soon as the market starts eating you up change your game, find a new market,

    it hasn’t been round long enough, i just don’t see the point of closing up and selling the domain,

    there must have been a better exit strategy than this, what about your users, just bail on them soon as it aint gonna be an overnight success?

    good luck in your next venture,

  5. Max

    June 3rd, 2006 at 1:19 pm

    jme giffo: It’s true that TechCrunch is already kick-ass but after the re-design not long ago, a lot of people were disappointed, so implementing some AJAX into TechCrunch would make it a bit more appealing in my opinion for some of the members who stopped checking it. It was just an idea; as I love going to TechCrunch no matter what the site looks like.

    And about fold.com, on the dev blog it says “…Fold is deactivated for the time being.” But the site is for sale. So does this mean Fold is deactivated permanently and his blog post is a lie…

  6. Armin

    June 3rd, 2006 at 2:18 pm

    There’s way too many AJAX based start pages at the momnet. Seems that everyone with a bit knowledge can make one.

  7. BiZwiKi.CN

    June 3rd, 2006 at 3:07 pm

    Ya, I agree with armin, sometimes, it just a neture work.

  8. Rod Edwards

    June 3rd, 2006 at 3:07 pm

    Max - what does “implementing some ajax” on it mean? unless there’s a compelling usability gap that could be best bridged with ajax implementation of something then why would you? What is it you find so painful about reading on techcrunch that it requires changing? Personally, I think its a pretty good blog implementation.

    Not trying to sound persnickity (sp?) - just askin’!

    -R

  9. Rod Edwards

    June 3rd, 2006 at 3:10 pm

    Oh - and I wanted to say to Mike that I don’t imagine the ghost of fold will be troubling anyone as I’d say its brand equity is about… zero.

    Btw - what’s with their logo? Logo design drives me nuts. What are those yellow spheres supposed to convey? Anything? Did they have something to do with the fold service?

  10. Search Engines WEB

    June 3rd, 2006 at 3:23 pm

    Behind every Tech Start Up are hard working, well educated, dedicated Human Beings with Dreams….

    Lets be compassionate and empathetic when reviewing someone’s Sweat and Blood

  11. howard Lindzon

    June 3rd, 2006 at 3:26 pm

    good name for a poker blog or poker site.

  12. jme giffo

    June 3rd, 2006 at 3:46 pm

    ajax is the new flash - i’m waiting for an article by jakob nielsen with the title “99% of Ajax is bad”,

    how much “ajax” can be put into techcrunch - just for the comments? or is the suggestion to make a prefectly usable site into a web app?

    Rod Edwards: Clearly the branding wasn’t as good as the site itself, when there are a lot of sites in the same category offering the same service i guess it comes down to the brand. you’re not alone - logo design drives me nuts aswell.

  13. Max

    June 3rd, 2006 at 4:00 pm

    Well I was thinking of something with the comments. Also, I remember seeing an article on digg that showed (I think it was) the Wall Street Journal website had AJAX on the site when the user highlights something and right-clicks. Then the user can search the site with a right click because a little window pops up. Something like that. It was just an idea- a bad idea judjing by the comments that came after it. I wasn’t suggesting making TechCrunch into an AJAX desktop homepage or anything like that. Just forget I ever mentioned it in the first place. :[

  14. Scott Matthews

    June 3rd, 2006 at 4:12 pm

    fwiw, the fold.com domain was actually up for sale at the very same time that the service was getting nice mentions on TechCrunch and Digg. There was something odd going on there.

    -Scott

  15. web20guy

    June 3rd, 2006 at 4:36 pm

    One of these AJAX homepage guys will make it big.

    I donno if there can be a “community” twist to this story.

  16. Vaibhav Domkundwar

    June 3rd, 2006 at 6:58 pm

    Ajax homepages definitely serve a great need and, though they may be used by only the early adopters today, their usage will widen soon. I think the question is how can startups in this space compete with the comfort you get from using a Ajax homepage from Yahoo, Google or MSN? There isn’t much innovative differentiation and what users may want to look for is a service that will be around for several years. I think startups face a problem on this front. Besides, revenue model still seems elusive. How are/can these pages be monetized?

  17. BK

    June 3rd, 2006 at 7:27 pm

    R.I.P Fold

  18. Steve

    June 4th, 2006 at 4:34 am

    I admire the fold guys for testing the water, seeing it sucks, and ‘fold’ing. It takes a lot of guts to admit that something isn’t working despite your dreams. I wish more would-be-companies would fold.

    In these days of cheap hardware and DIY programming why not start something up, test the market for it, then move on if it sucks?

  19. Keith

    June 4th, 2006 at 10:10 am

    I’m sure that fold.com is a pretty valuable asset to own. It is just a matter of having the right content and gaining popularity for users to keep coming back.

  20. Jon

    June 4th, 2006 at 10:47 am

    Ajax isn’t going to make this site more appealing. I come here for the content and want to read it like any other blog.

    I don’t need 100s of KBs of Javascript libraries loading so we can ajax the blog posts just for the hell of it.

    Use AJAX where it’s appropriate and needed. Don’t look for reasons to squeeze it in everywhere it’s not needed.

  21. Peter Cooper

    June 4th, 2006 at 11:19 am

    To break out of the small audience of Web 2.0 fans, it’s going to take a lot. I know many semi-technical people who use My Yahoo! and claim it’s more than good enough for all their needs.. and that’s the sort of thing these guys are all up against.

    If anything’s going to really break through, it’s going to be Google’s (because of their sheer might), or something that appeals to the MySpace/LiveJournal crowd (because of the sheer numbers and the way memes spread on there). I dare say that MySpace could pull it off if they tried.

  22. Adora

    June 4th, 2006 at 11:23 am

    After having put quite a bit of effort into moving several of my regular online applications into Fold containers, I was definitely disappointed when I saw the closing notice. I had previously exchanged a few emails with the owner, but my message questioning the future of Fold (and cursing the fact that I had not downloaded a bit of source code he posted the day before and removed!) went unanswered. I would love to be able to set this up on my own webserver if Axel isn’t going to develop or try to sell the entire service.

    :: Lisa
    :: adora [at] techslut [.] net

  23. Mr. K.

    June 4th, 2006 at 12:46 pm

    One of the supporting concepts of Web 2.0 is the community, which has to be built and maintained for the site to survive. This is likely getting harder and harder to do as more sites come to market and compete. Same thing happened with Web 1, except this time around it’s even more crucial since without the community, there is no content. So the strength of many Web 2.0 sites (users create the content) can definitely be a double-edged sword. And oddly enough, the tactics needed to build the community in a more competitive marketplace fall back on pre-web 2.0 concepts: branding, marketing, advertising, PR, customer serice: basically a lot of hard, fickle work. Time to get busy.

  24. Sas

    June 4th, 2006 at 4:33 pm

    Good grief! Even http://www.truegritz.com is getting more traffic than that and we just launched a couple of weeks ago! Glad we didn’t name is trueFold…

  25. jim

    June 4th, 2006 at 8:02 pm

    Still don’t know what fold was- that’s the problem

  26. Dan Tudor

    June 4th, 2006 at 8:31 pm

    I think I’m going to start a how-to-build-a-paper-airplane website and go after their name.

    Or, maybe a how-to-fold-undershirts website?

    The possibilities are endless, really….

  27. Andrej

    June 5th, 2006 at 12:30 am

    @Max: please don’t suggest anything like messing with right-clicks. I use the default right-click functionality in firefox and hate it when somebody makes it unavailable. The 2 functions i use most:
    - Hightlight a text, right-click “search web for…” in google.
    - Open link in new tab.
    I really frustrates me when somebody makes these unavailable.

  28. waitee

    June 5th, 2006 at 6:21 am

    Fold.com is now a barcode company

    Barcode / PDF Stamping & Image Watermarking Tools for Mac OS X

    http://www.fold.com

  29. Web Developer

    June 5th, 2006 at 9:02 am

    fold.com, that is not a very enticing domain name.

    I use netvibes.com myself, it’s excellent, and they’ve made several strides, including their netvibes eco system.

  30. Jonathan Cohen

    June 5th, 2006 at 10:52 am

    Ironically, the free nature of these homepages is contributing to their downfall.

    If you had to pay a monthly fee to use Netvibes or Goowy, I’ll bet you’d make damn sure you’d use it (or cancel). These free services attract a lot of looky-loos like me who try them out, add a few items, and abandon them.

    Some of them let you start personalizing without even requiring email registration. Good concept, bad move. The less you require of your visitors, the lower the buy-in, and the less likely they are to return.

  31. Richard Cook

    June 5th, 2006 at 12:58 pm

    Peter Cooper mentions the “Myspace crowd”. One thing I’ve noticed about the teen crowd on the social networks is that they love their quizzes & surveys. Problem is, someone takes a quiz and wants their friends to do the same, they have to post a link to a different site. With Web 2.0/Ajax stuff it should be easy for one of these sites to have someone embed the quiz right on their site, have someone take it and automagically have the results appear on the friend’s site. I think sites that do this will have an advantage - perhaps My AOL pages, with their “iamalpha” development?

  32. Kevin Burton

    June 5th, 2006 at 1:28 pm

    Hey…. don’t trash “defining failure”… now the founders can move on to something bigger and better. There’s PLENTY of space for innovation left and too many players in a crowded area might not be a good thing.

    Kevin

  33. Franck Poisson

    June 6th, 2006 at 9:56 pm

    In the next five years, everybody will have a personal blog and a personal start page. I think there will be three players Webwag.com (soon to be released), PagesFlakes and Netvibes (50% marketshare) and Google (30%), Live.com (10%) and MyYahoo (10%).
    Fold disappears but they did not fight for a long time. Its death is more an internal decision than a market effect. The personal start pages race is just beginning.

  34. Jeremy Wright

    June 7th, 2006 at 1:09 pm

    Domain and blog are both down for me. Too bad. I’m a little surprised at such a quick implosion…

  35. J Hemlock

    June 15th, 2006 at 11:47 am

    Something is going on at Fold that reminds me of Mark Twain, if you get my drift…

  36. Christian Koch

    June 15th, 2006 at 6:00 pm

    looks like fold has something cooking..

    http://www.limited-exposure.or.....ill-alive/

  37. Ryan Christensen

    June 16th, 2006 at 1:34 am

    Well yes it looks as if it may be a marketing campaign formulated out of a missed domain payment hehe. If so that is a nice trick. 50 day down time? hrm.

    I think the community space will stay small company based for some time in privacy issues and boredom with certian communities. I think that there is much room left here in this space.

  38. Nicolai Hel

    August 17th, 2006 at 1:56 am

    Seems they are now a site for Barcode Software.

  39. Seo Update

    October 7th, 2006 at 3:07 am

    With the domain you can do nice stuff. It’s now a barcode site? wheird shit.

  40. Willa Holland

    December 14th, 2006 at 3:51 pm

    Never used it, never will.. Heh.. “fold”..

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