All things die. Humans die. Plants die. Stars and planets die. And so, too, do your favorite social media networks become shrouded in that inevitable darkness that descends upon us all.
Okay. So that’s a bit dramatic, but yes, like all things, even our favorite social networks have a lifespan. An app will debut, quietly rise to become the must-have platform, ride the wave of popularity, and eventually fall into decline as we move onto the next big thing.
But just because we find other networks doesn’t mean those once-loved platforms are erased from our hearts.
Here are 7 social media sites you totally forgot about (and what happened to them in the end).
Peach
Has there ever been an app that has burned so brightly and fizzled out so quickly as Peach?
The app, created by Vine’s Dom Hoffman, was a social platform that allowed users to both chat with their friends and post updates on a public profile. (It’s “a sort of a mix between Twitter and Slack,” reported Mashable tech reporter Karissa Bell at the time.)
When the app debuted in 2016, it quickly went viral … for no discernible reason at all. Maybe it was just a particularly slow news cycle? Maybe people were charmed by its logo, which was the ever-suggestive peach? No matter what, Peach quickly blew up and just as quickly fell into obscurity, demonstrating that it was perhaps more a fad than anything.
However, Peach is actually still alive and kicking. You can still download the app and in the notes of a 2017 iOS update, Peach wrote “So you might have noticed that we don’t actively support this app as much as we used to … still, we don’t have any plans to take it down.”
Yo
Yo will forever live in infamy as the app that let users do exactly one thing: say “yo” to each other. But the story of Yo’s birth is almost as absurd as the app itself.
The idea for the app came from Moshe Hogeg, then-CEO of photo and video sharing service Mobli. While working there, Hogeg noticed that he was sending a volley of texts to get his assistant’s attention. Frustrated, Hogeg asked iOS designer Or Arbel to design an app with one single button to help him notify his assistant. And thus, Yo was born.
Despite its simplistic premise, the app had a pretty meteoric rise. The app quietly launched in April of 2014 and scaled up the rankings in the app store. By July, the app reported that it earned $1.5 million in funding from investors; in August of 2014, Yo added the ability to attach links and hashtags to yo-tifications; and in September, Arbel told Mashable that the app had 2.7 million registered users and 1.2 million monthly active users.
But, as the saying goes, what goes up must come down. In February 2018, Yo posted a message on Medium, asking users to donate to its Patreon to keep the app alive. As of now, the app still lives, though its future remains uncertain. While researching for this post, Mashable saw that Yo was no longer available to download in the Apple app store. But the app’s developer tweeted that it was a technicality that caused the removal and the app was back up shortly thereafter.
Vine
If there is has been a single app that has defined The Culture™, it’s Vine. The app debuted in 2012 with a simple premise: allow users to create and upload short, 6-second videos and share them with friends. But the results were something that not even the earliest Vine adopters could have predicted. Vine soon became a hub for art, with a thriving stop-motion animation scene; it launched the music career of Shawn Mendes; and it got downright weird, in the best, most delightful way. (It also introduced the world to Jake and Logan Paul, so there’s that too).
But sadly, nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy. In 2016, Twitter (which acquired Vine in 2013) announced that it was shutting down the short-form video site for good. Twitter was having its own financial woes at the time and also laid off 9% of its staff.
But the platform’s demise was anything but simple. Twitter’s announcement of Vine’s closure came on Oct. 27, 2016. Later in December 2016, Twitter said that it would it would keep parts of Vine and launch “Vine Camera,” a simplified version of Vine that lets you take 6 second videos to post to Twitter or save to your phone. (i.e. Vine but without the community / social network components to it). The app finally shut down on Jan. 17, 2017.
But plot twist! In November 2017, Vine co-creator Dom Hofmann announced that he was working on a follow up to Vine, which became known as Vine 2. And then plot twist again! In May 2018, Hofmann announced that V2 was being postponed indefinitely.
Meanwhile another one of Vine’s co-creators Rus Yusupov went on to launch a little app you may have heard of: HQ Trivia. As to the longevity of that app, only time will tell. It’s massively popular and also features high profile collaborations with The Rock and The Voice. However, after reportedly accepting funding from tech super-villain Peter Thiel, HQ Trivia faced significant backlash and a #DeleteHQ campaign.