Comments on: Startups Smell Userplane Blood

By: Userplane Not In A Good Shape? | Widgets Lab

Userplane Not In A Good Shape? | Widgets Lab — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:25:32 +0000

[...] is what Robin Wauters at Techcrunch wrote about in a quite Valleywag-like headline. But going beyond the headline he seems to be right. Something [...]

By: Jason Grunstra

Jason Grunstra — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:57:26 +0000

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.

By: Hacksaw

Hacksaw — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:00:57 +0000

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.

By: mikka

mikka — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:18:38 +0000

Buy-back? Umm could you elaborate on that a bit as to why any sane person would do that?

By: Markus

Markus — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:31:31 +0000

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.

By: Userplane Is Here to Stay

Userplane Is Here to Stay — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:27:36 +0000

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.

By: Stinky Monkey

Stinky Monkey — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:59:15 +0000

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.

By: Larry Chiang

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:35:27 +0000

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

By: burgler99

burgler99 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:54:19 +0000

Then they really fear for their business I guess…

By: sean percival

sean percival — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:05:17 +0000

AOL came after Nick Schneble so hard the poor guy had to move to Thailand.

By: Yair Greenbaum

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:19:01 +0000

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

By: Robin Wauters

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:04:06 +0000

thanks, it was offline before. post updated.

By: Roundup: VC “broken”, Userplane in the deadpool, Clear to sell data? « Benjamin Kuo’s Blog

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:40:37 +0000

[...] Is Santa Monica’s Userplane–the startup sold by Mike Jones to AOL–now in the deadpool? [...]

By: James Byers

James Byers — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:33:36 +0000

There’s a shutdown notice now on TopicFox citing a conflict of interest with AOL/Userplane.

By: burgler99

burgler99 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:44:25 +0000

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!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:32:37 +0000

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.

By: james

james — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:23:22 +0000

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

By: Deal.y.zer

Deal.y.zer — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:21:10 +0000

I smell it too.