Online application provider 8Apps has announced that it will be shutting in January. 8apps offered collaborative online tools not dissimilar to those offered by 37signals.
According to a post by Download Squad reviewing the site back in July the site was on the market then, but it appears there were no takers. Probably not helping the service was its failure to ever open to the public; even today it’s still an invite only service, great for initial buzz but not a great way to build up a user base over the long term, unless of course you’re Google.
8Apps rounds out the TechCrunch Deadpool for 2007. See a full list of this years Deadpool entries here.
LAST!
And there is more just like them, project management, etc. Collaboration, etc. Where’s that link….aint even worth it.
Here you go: http://www.octabox.com/
I see big things from these guys….right!
Hmm…. Invite only works…. There is no need to be google… But then you must have an interesting, useful and different thing to offer.
He should pass it on to someone else. Why let all that work go to waste?
Would like to see Mike’s predictions for the positive things that will happen next year.
From Jon’s own mouth:
http://www.yong.../#comment-64242
8apps is a dead project, I announced my non-committal to it back in July or something. It died along with jonkenpon. I’m also closing it in January next year. In fact, I’d like it to be even more of a graveyard than it appears – it still gets a decent amount of traffic, and I feel bad for those people, but I’m changing direction and productivity apps are really of no interest to me anymore.
OSF on the other hand, has been really successful. Even at 8apps’ peak, it never reached the level of traffic that OSF gets. For now I think the flow of new recipes is just right – any faster and we would just miss them as they fly by into the next page. To call OSF a “graveyard” is to either be purposefully spiteful for whatever reason, or to just be unaware of all the activity that happens around the site and even off it (lots of blogs talking about OSF still).
For a project that took just over a week to build and maybe a month of tweaking, that’s a fantastic result, both personally and professionally. And for 2008 I’m going to be putting more time into OSF2, using the skills I’ve learned over the last half of the year in my private consulting projects, and I’m expecting things to get really, REALLY interesting
Stick around!
Founder / Designer / Developer of 8apps here. Sup.
Niyzaz > indeed, invite-only worked quite well for 8apps. I think there are something like 15,000 members on there now. Launched in January 2007 with a seed group of about 1000 members. That’s not bad with absolutely no marketing efforts – and especially considering from about May onwards I didn’t touch the thing as I was just too busy.
FYI > I’m now doing consulting work and am just far too busy to keep an eye on something like 8apps. There are also a bunch of really great alternatives – one that impressed me most recently is http://www.goodbarry.com
I’m still doing development work on my own projects but because my time is so limited I’m only going to work on personal projects that are very closely connected to my personal interests. 8apps wasn’t really that, it was your typical web 2.0 “lets get acquired” productivity app with no clear revenue model (at least in my case. perhaps someone else can dream up an appropriate revenue model).
Good learning experience, though.
I want to be 37signals = Deadpool
Why don’t you sell it to someone (not a large company)?
Daniel > that has always been an option. You just need to step up and make me an offer! (not here, contact me via my blog)
Duncan,
Any word on Omnidrive re: deadpool?
OSF actually looks kinda cool – I like it.
As for the 80% of the other crap on the web (8apps probably included), they will never get enough traction to keep the attention of the people on the back end.
It’s like having a car that gets 60MPG but limited supply of gas. It’s great for the first tank, but subsequentyly becomes a bitch
I think they need merger with some good brand.
Don’t speak too quickly, there’s still one more day in the year to pack it in.
Hey guys,
It is sad to see 8apps entering the deadpool, I always though there was some potential in the service but in the end I felt like it was neglected [Seems yongfook had no time to put into the service].
http://www.octabox.com is a web platform for freelancers and small businesses that offer tools to manage their operation online.
As of we’re offering 6 tools and we’re constantly adding more modules to our platform. When the API will be released, you will be able to develop your own modules and interact with your own information.
We’re currently in private beta and we’ll be opening for public really soon, you can register for an invitation when we open it up.
Thanks,
CEO
octabox
8apps users and expositors:
why not buying 8apps jointly?
that´s what couchtycoon will be built for. at the moment we are doing our first steps too and we are not ready for any big traffic or so because we´ve just set up our basic system and didn´t anything concerning our interface. but our system is definitely ready to do such a deal.
so anyone out there interested in owning a piece of 8apps, please participate the poll on: http://couchtyc...n.net/8apps-com
Thats too bad to hear – I had used 8apps before and I was pretty happy with it.