Died in 2012
19 projects
Kazaa
The post-Napster free-for-all
2001–2012
File Sharing
Loopt
Sam Altman's first company: see where your friends are, years before phones could
2006–2012
Mobile Apps
Google Health
Google tried to be the place you kept your medical records, found that almost nobody wanted one, and closed it in 2012
2008–2012
Online Services
Jaiku
A month older than Twitter, bought by Google, shelved
2006–2012
Social Networks
Megaupload
The file locker the FBI took down
2005–2012
File Sharing
Gowalla
The prettier check-in app from Austin that lost the SXSW war to Foursquare, was bought by Facebook for its team and switched off three months later
2009–2012
Mobile Apps
Picnik
The photo editor in your browser, bought by Google and closed two years later
2007–2012
Photo Sharing
Google Wave
Email, reinvented too hard
2009–2012
Web Technologies & Tools
Knol
Google's signed, ad-sharing answer to Wikipedia, opened in 2008 and closed in 2012
2008–2012
Reference & Learning
Windows Mobile
A tiny Windows with a Start button, reset to zero by its own maker
2000–2012
Operating Systems
Xperia Play
The PlayStation phone: a slide-out gamepad on an Android handset, one model, one year, no Android 4.0
2011–2012
Phones & Tablets
MobileMe
The Apple service Steve Jobs apologised for
2008–2012
Online Services
Meebo
Every messenger, in one browser tab
2005–2012
Messengers
Digg
The front page of the web, until v4
2004–2012
Social Networks
MeeGo
Nokia and Intel's Linux phone, abandoned the year its best device shipped
2010–2012
Operating Systems
Google Notebook
Clip text and links from the web into online notebooks, from a 2006 browser extension to a 2012 export into Docs
2006–2012
Online Services
Google Video
Google's own YouTube, made redundant the day Google bought YouTube
2005–2012
Video & Streaming
iTunes Ping
Apple built a social network inside iTunes, launched it without Facebook and without the songs, and closed it after two years of silence
2010–2012
Social Networks
Color
Forty-one million dollars before launch, an app nobody understood, and a shutdown within two years: the cautionary tale of the 2011 app boom
2011–2012
Mobile Apps