The weak economic environment is also hitting Web 2.0 companies. Two of my favorite companies went under, but managed to survive somehow. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!
JPGMag: This is a website that lets users upload quality pictures and vote on them. The best pictures are printed out in a monthly magazine. I also submitted my picture to this site, and called my readers to vote for it. Â My picture didn’t get enough votes, but I kept on visiting this site.Â
The picture was of a homeless man sleeping on a bench near a bright globe, part of an exhibition of globes on Rothschild avenue in Tel Aviv, an exhibition praising globalization.
Anyway, on January this year, JPGMag “went under”, stating it had failed to raise money to keep it running. O was sad to read their goodbye letter…
During January and February, they went into serious negotiations, and finally got themselves a new owner and new funding. This process was pushed by the community, that made a lot of noise over the web. Anyway, I’m happy they’re back.
Picli: This is a “Photo Digg”, which ranks photos that the community uploads in a similar upcoming/popular style like Digg. I wrote about them twice, first time saying how they could be gamed, and the second time about how serious they are in responding to the community.Â
They launched their site 2 years ago, but struggled to get out of the beta phase.The development stalled on Picli and so has traffic.
Now, they have gone out of beta, and launched a redesigned site which is beautiful and full of cool features. It’s amazing that the site is solely run by two guys from London, without strong backing. And they ride on!
Talking of Web 2.0, also my employer Metacafe, has undergone a site redesign. Bigger changes to come. Follow them on Twitter: @metacafe.
And talking of Twitter. You can follow me at @yohay.
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