Hungry Founder Puts Mowser In The Deadpool

mowser.jpgMobile internet service Mowser is to be shut down due to lack of traffic, funding, and a hungry founder.

Founded by ex-Yahoo mobile evangelist Russell Beattie in 2007, Mowser offered a web to mobile friendly page service. Users entered the address of the web page they wanted to view into Mowser, and the site returned a mobile version of the page.

According to Beattie
, the site was unable to raise funding and traffic to the site has been declining this year. Beattie writes of a serious case of financial hardship, including being unable to pay rent, having his car repossessed, and subsisting on buttered macaroni as revenue from Moswer dropped to only single figures a day.

Notably Beattie has gone cold on the mobile sector altogether, writing:

I don’t actually believe in the “Mobile Web” anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I’m talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn’t happened, and now I’m sure it isn’t going to.

The other interesting takeaway: 80% of Mowser’s traffic was porn related.

All development on the site has stopped and although the service will remain live for now, Beattie is preparing customers for a full shutdown. Mowser joins the TechCrunch Deadpool.