10 ms·

Dopplr is shutting down

41 points by erickhill 13y ago

camus2 13y ago
I did not know about the app, the idea is great ,was it a Nokia project? or did they "acquire-hire" it ? (bought it and shut it down ? ).
- hailpixel 13y ago
  It was a startup and was purchased by Nokia in 2009.
  - Arubis 13y ago
    Which was about the last time it was under active development. I always liked Dopplr but they just stopped caring post-acquisition. TripIt is about as close as you can get to a functional Dopplr these days.
jnazario 13y ago
as an extensive traveler, i experimented with in some years ago. it never really gave me what i wanted in terms of ease of use, nor did the community reach critical mass to yield good suggestions. gorgeous app, neat in concept, but it didn't really take off. sorry to see it die.
cfinke 13y ago
If you're not familiar with Dopplr, this short infomercial has all you need to know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXNgBs5DPLg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXNgBs5DPLg
- levosmetalo 13y ago
  If you are not familiar with Dopplr, and only source of information is a youtube instead of a short two sentence summary, you will never bother to know what someone thinks you should know about Dopplr. Which is fine, given that it shuts down anyways.
nnnnni 13y ago
It's "funny" how often there are posts for "_____ is shutting down" for things that are completely new to me. I'll go to the page and (many times) think "I would have used it if I would have known about it!" If you don't advertise well (and correctly!), you can't expect to survive, no matter how good your idea may be.
- xiljin 13y ago
  Same here. Ironically, a new travel planning site announcement just popped up on HN today in case you missed it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572902 CEO touts it as "World’s Best Travel Planner", we'll see!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
I think there's an opportunity for a SaaS that makes it easy for companies to publish a pretty "shutting down" page. This one is very uninspiring.
- jimmcslim 13y ago
  'Shutting-down as a Service'? And when Shutting-down as a Service inevitably shuts down, they can tell the world via their own Shutting-down as a Service page... O_o IT'S TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN! :-)
- caseydurfee 13y ago
  failrock.com is available...
  - unclesaamm 13y ago
    so is failr.com :)
reustle 13y ago
That's a shame, it looked like a really cool service and I've been wanting to sign up for a while. It seemed to be dormant, left out to rot.
jkaljundi 13y ago
On that note, are there any plans to develop Tripit further? It's also long overdue for an overhaul. Closing soon as well?
rabble 13y ago
I think today foursquare does serve a lot of the dopplr niche. When i'm traveling and i check in to a new city, i find other folks who are in town. It's not so good for planning, but it works for discovering who's in town.
jlev 13y ago
If you still have data in Dopplr that you want out, now's a good time to migrate it to TripIt. Here's a simple script I wrote to do it. https://github.com/jlev/Dopplr2TripIt https://github.com/jlev/Dopplr2TripIt
shapeshed 13y ago
It would be interesting to graph SaaS products being purchased and then being closed down over time. It would be a good barometer of the skill levels of decision makers in acquiring businesses.
SimHacker 13y ago
It was because they forgot to put an "e" between the "l" and the "r". For some strange reason, a lot of companies like spellr.com make that exact same mistake, and it always leads to failure.
- ancarda 13y ago
  Might have had more success if they used .io
- theandrewbailey 13y ago
  Adding an "e" was the best thing Twitter ever did.
  - jboynyc 13y ago
    And an 'i': http://web.archive.org/web/20060802094251/http://www.twttr.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20060802094251/http://www.twttr.c...
- crystaln 13y ago
  flickr did OK Unwillingness to shell out for the correct spelling does seem to be a negative indicator, though many companies did that once success looked likely.
  - Reedx 13y ago
    Yeah, if you're a startup and doing something unproven, you're not going to throw money at domain squatters on day 1.
- loceng 13y ago
  Yeah, I hear tumblr is never going to sell.
denzil_correa 13y ago
Chrome throws a SSL certificate warning.
- theandrewbailey 13y ago
  As does Firefox.
  - mobiplayer 13y ago
    Certificate expired in February.
BryanB55 13y ago
I thought it said "droplr is shutting down" and got upset for a minute. No idea what dopplr is but droplr.com is pretty useful.
stigi 13y ago
NOKIA shaking fist to the sky

41 points by erickhill 13y ago

I did not know about the app, the idea is great ,was it a Nokia project? or did they "acquire-hire" it ? (bought it and shut it down ? ).

hailpixel 13y ago
It was a startup and was purchased by Nokia in 2009.
- Arubis 13y ago
  Which was about the last time it was under active development. I always liked Dopplr but they just stopped caring post-acquisition. TripIt is about as close as you can get to a functional Dopplr these days.

jnazario 13y ago

as an extensive traveler, i experimented with in some years ago. it never really gave me what i wanted in terms of ease of use, nor did the community reach critical mass to yield good suggestions. gorgeous app, neat in concept, but it didn't really take off. sorry to see it die.

cfinke 13y ago

If you're not familiar with Dopplr, this short infomercial has all you need to know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXNgBs5DPLg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXNgBs5DPLg

levosmetalo 13y ago
If you are not familiar with Dopplr, and only source of information is a youtube instead of a short two sentence summary, you will never bother to know what someone thinks you should know about Dopplr. Which is fine, given that it shuts down anyways.

nnnnni 13y ago

It's "funny" how often there are posts for "_____ is shutting down" for things that are completely new to me. I'll go to the page and (many times) think "I would have used it if I would have known about it!" If you don't advertise well (and correctly!), you can't expect to survive, no matter how good your idea may be.

xiljin 13y ago
Same here. Ironically, a new travel planning site announcement just popped up on HN today in case you missed it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572902 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572902 CEO touts it as "World’s Best Travel Planner", we'll see!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

7Figures2Commas 13y ago

I think there's an opportunity for a SaaS that makes it easy for companies to publish a pretty "shutting down" page. This one is very uninspiring.

jimmcslim 13y ago
'Shutting-down as a Service'? And when Shutting-down as a Service inevitably shuts down, they can tell the world via their own Shutting-down as a Service page... O_o IT'S TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN! :-)
caseydurfee 13y ago
failrock.com is available...
- unclesaamm 13y ago
  so is failr.com :)

reustle 13y ago

That's a shame, it looked like a really cool service and I've been wanting to sign up for a while. It seemed to be dormant, left out to rot.

jkaljundi 13y ago

On that note, are there any plans to develop Tripit further? It's also long overdue for an overhaul. Closing soon as well?

rabble 13y ago

I think today foursquare does serve a lot of the dopplr niche. When i'm traveling and i check in to a new city, i find other folks who are in town. It's not so good for planning, but it works for discovering who's in town.

jlev 13y ago

If you still have data in Dopplr that you want out, now's a good time to migrate it to TripIt. Here's a simple script I wrote to do it. https://github.com/jlev/Dopplr2TripIt https://github.com/jlev/Dopplr2TripIt

shapeshed 13y ago

It would be interesting to graph SaaS products being purchased and then being closed down over time. It would be a good barometer of the skill levels of decision makers in acquiring businesses.

SimHacker 13y ago

It was because they forgot to put an "e" between the "l" and the "r". For some strange reason, a lot of companies like spellr.com make that exact same mistake, and it always leads to failure.

ancarda 13y ago
Might have had more success if they used .io
theandrewbailey 13y ago
Adding an "e" was the best thing Twitter ever did.
- jboynyc 13y ago
  And an 'i': http://web.archive.org/web/20060802094251/http://www.twttr.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20060802094251/http://www.twttr.c...
crystaln 13y ago
flickr did OK Unwillingness to shell out for the correct spelling does seem to be a negative indicator, though many companies did that once success looked likely.
- Reedx 13y ago
  Yeah, if you're a startup and doing something unproven, you're not going to throw money at domain squatters on day 1.
loceng 13y ago
Yeah, I hear tumblr is never going to sell.

denzil_correa 13y ago

Chrome throws a SSL certificate warning.

theandrewbailey 13y ago
As does Firefox.
- mobiplayer 13y ago
  Certificate expired in February.

BryanB55 13y ago

I thought it said "droplr is shutting down" and got upset for a minute. No idea what dopplr is but droplr.com is pretty useful.

stigi 13y ago

NOKIA shaking fist to the sky