Platial to Shut Down
A blog post from the company dated Saturday said it’s preparing to shutdown. The final note to mappers is dated March 1.
As I write this going to the main site yields a popup about retirement and the option to stay on the or to learn about archiving your maps. The best news? GeoCommons has agreed to host map data collected over the last five years.
An explanation is expected in the future, but for now there is simple apology for the short notice. That said, there’s a great GigaOm interview with DiAnn Eisnor that highlights how the company has been out of money for 18 months, had several failed acquisition attempts (one from Nat Geo), and looks at if the company was a bit too early for its time.
The company raised at least $2.4M in venture funding and acquired Frappr in 2007. Many people thought that Platial would not make it once Google launched it My Maps also in 2007.
