Digital Resurrection Starts Here

Social search engine that routed user questions to friends and friends-of-friends who were likely to have the answer.

Mobile email client that became the foundation for the redesigned Outlook for iOS and Android apps.

Amazon's Prime-member food delivery service operating in 20+ US cities. Could not compete with DoorDash and Uber Eats.

Popular Android/iOS task manager with a friendly octopus mascot. Yahoo acqui-hired the team and immediately killed the app.

Kenyan NFC-based transit payment system for Nairobi's matatu minibuses, replacing cash-based fares with prepaid cards.

3D body scanning and modeling technology that created detailed digital body models from photos or scans, useful for fashion e-commerce.

Curated discussion platform for invite-only group conversations around topics.

One of the first internet radio and streaming video platforms. Yahoo paid $5.7 billion at the peak of the dot-com bubble, making Mark Cuban a billionaire.

Canadian startup providing secure parcel pickup lockers at convenient locations like subway stations.

Mobile app that let users share contact information, photos, and files by physically bumping two phones together.

Dropbox's standalone photo gallery app organizing media by date and event. Meant to compete with Google Photos.

Leading digital comics platform with guided reading view and the largest digital comics library, merged into Amazon Kindle.

Personal search engine (formerly Greplin) that indexed your email, calendar, and social accounts to surface relevant info. Likely influenced Spotlight and Siri.

Hyperlocal weather app famous for minute-by-minute precipitation forecasts and beautiful radar maps. Apple absorbed the technology into Apple Weather.

Pioneering social bookmarking service that let users save, tag, and share web links. Invented the concept of folksonomy and social tagging.

Location-based social networking service and Foursquare predecessor that let friends check in and find nearby people via SMS.

Social travel planning tool that helped travelers share trip plans and discover when friends would be in the same city.

Alcohol delivery app for beer, wine, and spirits from local stores with delivery in under 60 minutes.

Wi-Fi home security camera with cloud recording and live streaming. Rebranded to Nest Cam after acquisition.

AI-powered messaging app that detected intent in conversations and offered contextual actions like scheduling and restaurant reservations inline.

Twitter's mobile development platform centered on crash reporting. Google acquired it and migrated everything to Firebase Crashlytics.

Largest online fabric store in the US, beloved by quilters, sewers, and crafters for its massive selection and detailed product information.

Pioneering photo sharing community that defined online photo hosting. Yahoo's neglect let Instagram and others overtake it before it was sold to SmugMug.

Social web browser that integrated social media feeds, photo sharing, and blogging directly into the browsing experience.

One of the first web hosting services that let anyone create their own website for free, organized into virtual neighborhoods by topic.

Google's AI-powered messaging app with Google Assistant integration and smart replies. Part of Google's famously fragmented messaging strategy.

Google's open-source project hosting service competing with SourceForge and GitHub.

Google's unified messaging and video chat platform that replaced Google Talk. Split into Chat and Meet before consumer version was killed.

RSS feed aggregator beloved by journalists and power users. Its shutdown sparked widespread outrage and spawned Feedly and other successors.

Ambitious real-time collaboration tool combining email, messaging, and wiki editing. Was too complex for mainstream adoption.

Google's social network meant to compete with Facebook. Despite heavy integration across Google products, it never achieved meaningful engagement.

Location-based check-in app that competed with Foursquare. Known for distinctive design and virtual item collection mechanics.

Music streaming service that let users upload and stream songs. Shut down after losing copyright lawsuits from all major labels.

Team chat application popular before Slack dominated. Atlassian tried rebuilding it as Stride, failed, then migrated customers to Slack.

On-demand home cleaning service shut down amid worker misclassification lawsuits and retention problems.

Airline fare search technology whose QPX engine powered many travel booking sites. Absorbed into Google Flights.

Google's experimental email client with smart bundling, snooze, and AI features. Many innovations were later folded into Gmail.

Finnish microblogging and lifestreaming platform, similar to Twitter, that aggregated a user's online activity into a single feed.

Cinematic VR platform that created professional 360-degree cameras and content. Pivoted to AR then sold off assets.

Anonymous messaging app popular with teens that offered username-based chat without requiring a phone number.

Desktop widget engine that inspired Apple's Dashboard widgets and Windows Vista gadgets. Yahoo made it free but eventually killed it.

Cloud music service that pioneered web-based streaming and 10-cent song purchases. Its technology became the foundation for iTunes Match.

AI-powered 3D avatar creation from a single selfie photo using deep learning for VR and gaming.

European DVD-by-mail and streaming service, essentially Netflix for the UK and Germany. Absorbed into Amazon Prime Video.

Face-swapping and AR filter app that applied real-time animated masks and effects to selfie videos.

Revolutionary email app that pioneered swipe-to-archive gestures and snooze functionality. Had a waitlist of over 700,000 people at launch.

Web-based instant messaging platform that let users access AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, and other chat networks from a browser.

Conversational AI platform providing natural language understanding for voice and chat interfaces. Integrated into Cisco Webex.

Video game live streaming platform that competed with Twitch and YouTube Gaming.

Mobile phone division acquired by Google primarily for patents, then sold to Lenovo at a $9.6B loss.

Activity tracking app that automatically recorded walking, cycling, and running using phone sensors without a wearable device.

Smart thermostat pioneer. The Nest brand was absorbed into Google Home ecosystem, losing its independent identity.

Professional photo editing plugins (Silver Efex, Color Efex, HDR Efex) used by photographers worldwide. Google made them free, then discontinued the desktop suite.

Nokia's mobile phone division was acquired by Microsoft to make Windows Phone devices. Microsoft wrote off $7.6B and laid off 7,800 employees.

Podcast creation platform disrupted by Apple adding podcasts to iTunes. The team pivoted and created Twitter as a side project.

Google's early social network hugely popular in Brazil and India but failed to compete with Facebook globally.

Photo sharing platform where geotagged photos appeared on Google Earth and Google Maps.

Intimate social network limited to 150 friends, emphasizing close relationships over mass followings. Popular in Southeast Asia.

Pioneering smartwatch from one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever. Known for e-paper displays and long battery life.

Live video streaming app that let users broadcast from their phones and interact with viewers in real time via hearts and comments.

Desktop photo organizer and editor with web albums that was Google's primary photo service before Google Photos replaced it.

Fashion community where users created collages of clothing and accessories, driving massive referral traffic to retailers.

On-demand delivery platform for food and goods, merged into Uber Eats after acquisition.

Mobile office suite for viewing and editing Microsoft Office documents on phones and tablets before native mobile Office apps existed.

Parent company of Diapers.com, Soap.com, and other niche e-commerce sites. Amazon acquired it after an aggressive price war, then shut it all down.

Enterprise messaging platform for workplace communication, absorbed into Slack after Salesforce acquired both companies.

Beautifully designed music streaming service co-founded by Skype creators. Praised for superior UI but couldn't compete with Spotify's growth.

Social e-reading platform that let users highlight, annotate, and discuss books together. Known for its beautiful design.

Smart home hub connecting devices across wireless protocols. Nest acquired it and controversially bricked all existing hardware by shutting down servers.

Anonymous social sharing app for posting secrets visible to friends-of-friends. Raised $35M but shut down amid cyberbullying concerns.

3D shoe fitting technology that helped online shoppers find the right shoe size by comparing internal dimensions of shoes they already owned.

Mac menu bar app for controlling any music player (Spotify, iTunes, Rdio) from a single unified interface.

The original Siri was a standalone iOS app with broader third-party integration than Apple's version. The app was removed after acquisition.

Pioneering VoIP and video calling platform that became synonymous with internet calling. Microsoft retired it in favor of Teams.

Social entertainment company that made popular Facebook and MySpace apps including SuperPoke, FunWall, and Top Friends.

Canadian mobile social gaming company that built cross-platform multiplayer games with social networking features.

Open-source desktop music player built on Mozilla platform combining local playback with web-based discovery and add-ons.

Free music streaming service known for its human-curated playlists organized by mood, activity, and time of day.

Award-winning Mac and iOS email client praised for its clean interface, immediately abandoned after Google acqui-hired the team for Gmail.

Note-taking app that competed with Evernote, offering structured notebooks for recipes, products, movies, and more.

Web discovery platform that let users stumble upon random interesting websites based on their interests.

Popular calendar app praised for its clean design and integrations with Facebook, Trello, and GitHub. Absorbed into Outlook mobile.

Location check-in app spun out from Foursquare. Users earned badges and mayorships by checking into venues.

Smart calendar that auto-enriched meetings with maps, contacts, documents, and relevant context. An AI assistant before the AI era.

Math and writing education platform used in schools, offering personalized practice and teacher analytics.

Digital magazine subscription service offering unlimited access to 200+ magazines for a flat monthly fee. Directly replaced by Apple News+.

Social commerce platform combining Pinterest-style image bookmarking with direct purchasing.

AI calendar app that used machine learning to suggest optimal times for habits, to-dos, and meetings. Co-founded by behavioral economist Dan Ariely.

Web analytics software that became Google Analytics. The UTM tracking parameters it invented are still used universally today.

Short-form video hosting service where users could share six-second-long looping video clips.

Search and discovery app that aggregated information into card-based results for restaurants, movies, and local activities.

NLP-powered news reader that summarized stories into short, structured updates. Competed with Summly (which Yahoo bought the same year).

Encrypted communication startup whose technology became the foundation for Signal's encryption protocol used by WhatsApp and others.

Iconic desktop media player that defined the MP3 era with its skinnable interface and plugin ecosystem.

Smart home hub that connected devices from multiple manufacturers through a single app. Originally a Quirky spinoff.

Beloved cross-platform to-do list app known for its elegant design and seamless syncing. Microsoft replaced it with To Do, which fans widely considered a downgrade.

Enterprise social networking platform for internal company communication. Retired in favor of Viva Engage.

Iconic restaurant rating guide known for its distinctive 30-point scale and survey-based reviews from diners.

Personalized magazine-style news reader using machine learning to curate articles based on reading habits.

Digital advertising company acquired to compete with Google's DoubleClick. Microsoft wrote off $6.2B, nearly the entire purchase price.

Anonymous compliment app for teens that let users answer positive polls about their friends. Was the #1 App Store download.