There has been no shortage of talk about the apparent demise of Userplane, the text, voice and video chat software provider that was acquired by AOL in August 2006 for around $40 million (the exact price was never disclosed).
Venturebeat ran a story on the property last May, citing sources and Userplane clients as saying the service had been “neglected if not abandoned by AOL”. Yet this morning, I exchanged some e-mails with Darin Ohlandt, General Manager of Userplane, and he responded to the rumors saying they are definitely not shutting down and will continue to offer the existing chat and IM services to third-party sites.
However, some writing on the wall suggests he may not be painting a complete picture of what is going on.
A recent thread on OnlinePersonalsWatch (which covers the online dating industry, where demand for Userplane and other similar services has always been high) suggested that the site would be deadpooled by its owner soon. A developer commented on the thread claiming he had tried to contact Userplane for weeks through e-mails, voice calls and social networks and received no response, and ultimately went to their offices only to find all doors were locked with no one in sight (Ohlandt suspects the latter may have had something to do with the move to a new office in Santa Monica). And in that very same thread, former senior developer at Userplane Nick Schneble touted his new startup TopicFox, an alternative to the service (although it seems to be offline now – the website now reads the service was discontinued over a conflict of interest with Userplane).
Meanwhile the Userplane website still lists Michael Jones as the company’s CEO. That’s remarkable, because Jones left the AOL executive team to pursue a new startup called Tsavo back in August 2008, and has since signed up as the new COO at MySpace.
A month ago, Time Warner announced that its Board of Directors has authorized management to proceed with plans for the separation of AOL from the company. This would likely result in a massive restructuring of AOL, and could have a major impact on non-proven acquisitions made in the past. Other reasons why Userplane is on deadpool alert: AOL is placing much focus on lifestreaming and chat service SocialThing, which recently spread across 75 of its properties, and then of course there’s those other instant messaging services in their portfolio (AIM and ICQ).
There are more signs. When Ted Cahall was named new president of the product group at AOL back in January 2009, his memo – which we published in full here on TechCrunch – states that Userplane would be moved into the People Networks business unit under former Bebo President Joanna Shields. But at the end of last month, Shields resigned from her position as Executive VP for People Networks and to our knowledge has not been replaced to date.
It’s not surprising that many startups with competing solutions are taking advantage of the rumors about Userplane’s impending shut-down. Toksta is the most outspoken one, having set up a special page for Userplane clients who are looking to switch to an alternative provider. Other competitors in the field who are likely paying a lot of attention to what is going to happen to Userplane include Meebo with its Community IM product and ekkoTV.
To be continued, no doubt.
I smell it too.
Darin Ohlandt is based in Washington DC and not in LA. This can give you an indication whether there is an actual office in Santa Monica.
Second, the previous GM of Userplane, Sam Wick, has recently left AOL to join his former boss at Userplane, Mike Jones, at Myspace. His title is pretty amazing for a guy that was a formerly a BD manager at this startup which was not really a success story for AOL. He is SVP Music, Strategy and Monetization. http://www.link...m-wick/0/271/55
Userplane moved offices to the clock tower building in Santa Monica. They now share a space with goowy / socialthing.
Userplane is not shutting down.
Sam Wick left Userplane for platform-A and then went to MySpace. He hasn’t been with userplane for quite some time.
toksta looks like Skype and but you can customize it via CSS. topicfox doesn’t have screenshots up yet (still in beta I think) and I could not find where to sign up for the Meebo community im. Ekko.tv looks nice as well but has no pricing up.
we switched to toksta about 6 months ago and are very happy with it..support is quick and the im is absolutely reliable.. still waiting for their chat app to be released. come on guys, HURRY UP!
There’s a shutdown notice now on TopicFox citing a conflict of interest with AOL/Userplane.
thanks, it was offline before. post updated.
Hey Robin,
Just a quick comment:
We now call ekkoTV just ekko.
We now use http://www.ekko.im as our main URL (www.ekko.tv still works)
We thought ekko and .im is more appropriate since we focus on IM now and not only video
Yair
ekko co-founder
AOL came after Nick Schneble so hard the poor guy had to move to Thailand.
Then they really fear for their business I guess…
Having to buy-back your business after you sell it to Google, AOL, eBay or Yahoo should be required @GSB or HBS. File that under “What They Don’t Teach You at B-School”
Expect a panel on it in the near future. IF you wanna chip in comments or rec a panelist, I’ll be doing research from now til Nov larrychiang@duck9.com or PM me via Twitter/fBook
Buy-back? Umm could you elaborate on that a bit as to why any sane person would do that?
The current GM would not comment about Userplane sticking around if this was false information. Userplane has and will always have “competitors”, but over the years they have proven to be dominant leaders in their space. There’s lots of speculation in this article, and while it’s true that AOL is going through changes (TW spinoff, new CEO) – Userplane isn’t going anywhere.
And they do have a new office (recently relocated, a few block from their previous location), in Santa Monica, CA.
You might wanto to monitor pagesms.com
It is meant to be a completely customizable IM solution that runs within a website. Instead of having a fixed buddy list it generates the buddies based on a context (currently all users that are on a webpage at the same time).
We still have a lot of rough edges and definitively want to improve on the designs to provide nicer ones from the get-go instead of just being “extremly” customizable.
Give it a try, send us feedback or just visit us from time to time We are moving quickly.
Userplane is a total joke. They laid off all but 3 or 4 off their staff members and don’t take care of their clients. I just got their “newsletter” in the mail – “The Userplane team is still comprised of forward-thinking, talented individuals who work hard to keep Userplane in demand and relevant in our industry.” Just who are these people? Their GM is a total joke – a coward only and an AOL puppet. As far as their “new offices” go – they only moved into new office space because they fired so much of the Userplane staff that it was pointless to stay in their old building…why renew a lease for 3-4 people who rarely come into the office when they can move into with another AOL owned company and share their space? Userplane hasn’t been relevant in years. Their ship has sailed people. Don’t believe the hype.
Ha! I was ‘that developer’ that went knocking on their doors. First time I’ve ever stalked a company before!
I recently received an email from them about the move to the new offices along with an invite to come by and check out the new digs. I sent a reply to take them up on the offer, but have yet to hear back. It is the 4th of July weekend, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.