Making a website is not as easy as it looks especially if it is used for business. For most startups, creating a website is one of the stepping stones to establish an online presence.
Not all websites can conquer the internet. Although there are millions of internet and mobile users nowadays, websites that are famous today may be insignificant tomorrow. Let us take a look back on 10 noteworthy website failures.
-
com
Before Facebook became well-known, Myspace was once the reigning social networking website. It was bought by the investor named Rupert Murdoch for $327 million in July 2007. Most of the users of this website were from the young age group. Due to the poor web security against phishing, malware, spam, and vandalism, the website drove its advertisers away.
-
Digg
This website is still active but not wasn’t able to retain its former success. This social site enables the users to share content. However, due to its major update, it removed the social elements that users have enjoyed. It defeats the original objective which causes to lose a huge portion of its existing fan-base.
-
Friendster
Another social site that was founded before Myspace. It was a famous social network that turned into a gaming and entertainment website. It has lost its popularity to Facebook. Their biggest mistake was turning down Google’s offer in buying the company for $30 million.
-
Daily Radar
Launched in 2000, this gaming news website was known for its game journalism and stunts involving PS2. It was then relaunched to the UK under the name GamesRadar.
-
Yahoo! Auctions
It is still operating in some parts of Asia but vanished in plain sight for the rest of the world. It competed against eBay boasting its own version of PayPal called Yahoo! Wallet. It provides great services but never caught on with a lot of consumers in the U.S. and European countries.
-
iTunes Ping
This Apple’s music social network failed to compete with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It doesn’t have social media integration which makes it kind of useless.
-
LimeWire
This was once a wildly successful P2P client that was shut down in 2010. It was taken down due to piracy claims. A case order was released on 26 October 2010 stating that millions of dollars’ worth of software and music were illegally downloaded using the website.
-
The Hub
Ten weeks after its launch, this website was taken off from the face of the internet. This social media site aimed solely at teenagers was created for Walmart. Not a lot of teens were interested in the website and it required parent’s approval before it can be accessed.
-
icio.us
This social bookmarking site pioneered the online content sharing. However, it failed because of restrictions and broken web tools when it was relaunched.
-
Altavista
This was the most loved early web search engine established in 1995. It lost ground to new search engine websites such as Google. In 2003, it was purchased by Yahoo! and eventually shut down in July 2013. Since then, all visits to AltaVista’s home page were redirected to the main page of Yahoo!.
The internet is filled with millions of websites. Sadly, some of the popular ones who made it to the spotlight suddenly lose its fame. The competition is tough in e-commerce and online industry market. Any website must have a competitive edge to stand out from the
