Startup Failures in 2009

Invented social check-ins in 2000 — Google bought it to kill it.

The digital gold currency that hit 5 million accounts and $2B in annual transactions — 13 years before Bitcoin — shut down after US DoJ indicted its founders for money laundering

The Age of Empires studio was closed by Microsoft the same week Halo Wars shipped gold.

The studio behind Star Wars Rogue Squadron bet its future on Lair — PS3's worst-reviewed AAA launch — and went bankrupt two years later.

The studio that made TimeSplitters — founded by four ex-Rare GoldenEye developers — went into administration in 2009 after Haze received some of the worst PS3 launch reviews.

Yahoo paid $3.57 billion for the web's first social network — then deleted the internet.

The Swedish studio behind Bionic Commando: Rearmed went bankrupt weeks after their 3D reboot flopped — despite the remaster being one of 2008's best-reviewed games.

The music social network with 23M users that let you stream any song for free — destroyed by record label licensing terms that charged $0.25 per stream before Spotify existed

The internet TV startup founded by the creators of Skype — $45M from CBS, Viacom, and Warner, then shut down a year after launch when YouTube went HD

Demographic marketing service that used Facebook data to deliver targeted product recommendations to website visitors.

The social bookmarking site that lost all its users data in a database crash.

The creator of Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam — bankrupt when console game development costs outpaced a publisher without a franchise strategy

Creator of Star Wars Battlefront and Mercenaries — acquired by EA for $300M and shut down 2 years later after commercial underperformance

Announced the free legal music revolution in 2006 — launched in 2008 — died in 2009

A social network designed for people over 40 to share experiences and learn from each other.

A social network designed for people over 40 to share experiences and learn from each other.

Five years in development, incompatible with everything, replaced in two.

Yahoo's answer to MySpace — arrived at the question before Facebook made it irrelevant.