Show HN: Rip.so – a graveyard for dead internet things

They were on our desktops one day, the next their servers were dark, their domains squatted, their icons gone from our trays. Some died of mismanagement, some of acquisition, some of irrelevance. Some are technically still alive, but their soul left a long time ago. This page is a memorial to all of them.

We bury our heroes here. Pour a 56k modem out for them.

___ / \ | + | | RIP | |1996-| | 2024| |_____| ICQ 📖 1996 - 2024 "uh-oh." its sound was a generation's text notification before texts existed. its 6-digit numbers were the first online identities we ever cared about. now finally turned off after 28 years. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |1999-| | 2014| |_____| MSN Messenger / Windows Live Messenger 📖 1999 - 2014 "appear offline" was a personality. nudges shook your screen and your heart. your status was a song lyric. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |1998-| | 2018| |_____| Yahoo! Messenger 📖 1998 - 2018 BUZZ! BUZZ! the loudest possible way to say i miss you. its emoticons were unmatched. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |1997-| | 2017| |_____| AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) 📖 1997 - 2017 the running yellow guy. away messages were poetry. door slam - "snoozyboi89 has signed off." gut punch. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2005-| | 2019| |_____| BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) 📖 2005 - 2019 PIN exchanges were corporate intimacy. R / D ticks were status anxiety. it died defending its keyboard. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2005-| | 2022| |_____| Google Talk / Hangouts (Classic) 📖 2005 - 2022 remember when google had ONE messenger? then six? then zero? rest in the merge. ~ social networks ~ ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2003-| | 2011| |_____| MySpace (the real one) 📖 2003 - 2011 (ish) your top 8 was a public love letter and a public knife fight. profile songs autoplaying at 3am. tom is still your friend. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2002-| | 2015| |_____| Friendster 📖 2002 - 2015 the first social network most americans used. then it became a gaming site. then it disappeared. timeline of a forgotten pioneer. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2004-| | 2014| |_____| Orkut 📖 2004 - 2014 google's first social network attempt. weirdly enormous in brazil and india. 300 million users couldn't save it. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2011-| | 2019| |_____| Google+ 📖 2011 - 2019 they made you join it to comment on youtube. circles were a great idea trapped in a building no one wanted to enter. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2010-| | 2018| |_____| Path 📖 2010 - 2018 "a smaller, more personal social network." capped at 150 friends, like dunbar said. nobody wanted intimate; everyone wanted reach. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2013-| | 2017| |_____| Vine 📖 2013 - 2017 six seconds. comedic genius cremated by twitter monetization confusion. tiktok inherited everything but the constraint. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2013-| | 2017| |_____| Yik Yak 📖 2013 - 2017 (briefly back, then gone again) anonymous campus gossip. died of moderation, scaled by reputation. a brief, chaotic, location-based ghost town. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2009-| | 2017| |_____| Bebo 📖 2005 - 2013 UK and ireland's myspace. AOL bought it for $850M, sold it for $10M three years later. friend luv was a finite resource. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2003-| | 2018| |_____| Hi5 📖 2003 - 2018 huge in latin america and turkey. profile customization paradise. eventually pivoted to gaming, then gave up. ~ websites & web hosts ~ ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |1994-| | 2009| |_____| GeoCities 📖 1994 - 2009 the original homepage utopia. neighborhoods, animated GIFs, MIDI files, <marquee>, "under construction" signs. yahoo killed it in cold blood. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |1995-| | 2024| |_____| Angelfire / Tripod 📖 1995 - technically still on life support still up but their hearts stopped beating in 2003. cousin of geocities, smaller, scrappier. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2004-| | 2017| |_____| Digg (the original) 📖 2004 - 2010 (the redesign was the actual death) power users had a religion. the v4 redesign was the schism. reddit ate the whole pie. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2003-| | 2017| |_____| Delicious / del.icio.us 📖 2003 - 2017 social bookmarking when bookmarking was social. tags were the future. then they weren't. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2007-| | 2015| |_____| FriendFeed 📖 2007 - 2015 the geek's social aggregator. facebook bought it, hired the team, pretended it never existed. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2009-| | 2010| |_____| Google Wave 📖 2009 - 2010 "what if email and chat had a baby?" they shipped it. nobody understood it. dead in 14 months. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2005-| | 2013| |_____| Google Reader 📖 2005 - 2013 RSS was the open social network. google killed it for nothing in particular and the open web has been mourning since. ___ / \ | + | | RIP | |2005-| | 2017| |_____| YouTube comments before Google+ 📖 2005 - 2013 they were chaos but they were OURS. the google+ unification was when youtube comments