Uber, a publishing platform that was cofounded by artist Glenn Kaino and his cousin, former Friendster CEO and NBC West Coast president Scott Sassa, has called it quits. A notice on the site’s homepage states that Uber is latest victim of the US’s current economic woes, and that the site will shut down entirely on September 29.
The direct cause of the shutdown has been attributed to an in-progress funding round that fell through because of investor distress over the economy. Past investors in Uber have included media networks Universal Music Group and Discovery, as well as Sterling Stamos Co-Investors Fund. The site reportedly closed a $7.6 million Series B round in May.
Uber was originally founded in 2006 as a social destination, but later shifted its strategy to become a publishing platform while still retaining some of its social roots. Users were able to craft slick webpages (primarily blogs) that included drag-and-drop rich media like YouTube videos and photographs. The platform developed a dedicated following, but never reached a large user base – traffic data leveled off and hovered at less than half a million users a month (though Sassa pegged that number at around 2 million users).
Sassa previously was CEO at Friendster, which he joined in 2004, and subsequently left less than a year later. Before Friendster, Sassa held a string of executive positions in media organizations, doing stints at Fox Broadcasting, Time Warner, Marvel Comics, and NBC (he reportedly didn’t leave these on his own accord).
Uber has been added to the Deadpool.
Hmm, cool domain name though. Hope someone does something with it in the future.
Uh oh.
It’s uber sad. Good luck on their next venture.
Holy shit, what is Cory Kennedy going to do?
How can you blame anything or anybody if YOU burn through $7M in 5 months!?
Prediction LiveUniverse will buy.
Wait…they burned through 7.5 million in a five months?
LOL at blaming it on the “crisis in the economy.” Were they holding subprime paper?
That’s a convenient scapegoat, the economy. Tell that to the guys successfully raising money today.
Why not just keep the site going with minimal staff or sell to someone who is interested in maintaining it? Just closing a site shows a lack to respect to the community. 500,000-2,000,000 visitors a month is not massive but still a decent amount.
The site as it is could be maintained by 1 guy in LA, a few Indians in Bangalore and server costs. Bet could be kept up for 20k a month MAX if anybody was really passionate about it.
I’m interested to buy over your company. Please contact me.
P.S: My offer is a whopping 1 USD. Nope, I didn’t forget trailing zeros.
I think Scott Sassa needs to call it quits for awhile and stop losing other peoples money!
What’s happened? It’s now October 15th and the site seems to be up and running… did they make a u-turn? In which case this post should be updated or removed.
Sites down now.
Who would be the responsible party for the IP? I happen to know someone who would be interested in acquiring it.