Spymac

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Spymac was an online Macintosh community and rumour site launched at the end of 2001 by Holger Ehlis and Kevin April, [1] which grew to be the largest Macintosh community at the time, having around 600,000 users and 25 employees as of 2004. [1] [2] Spymac was known for innovative marketing and technology that led to its growth, such as the first-to-market 1GB email service, which launched even before Google's Gmail, causing an influx of new users, [3] [4] [5] and Wheel, a suite of online services that competed with Apple's .Mac, which included the aforementioned email service, backups, and website hosting. [6]

However, outcry over the site's "Leapfrog" redesign, which followed Web 2.0 principles, lead to many long-time users leaving. [7] The redesign marked a transition for the site, which switched away from being a Mac forum to a video upload site that paid users a portion of advertising revenue. [8] [9] By March 2007, the site had over one million users. [9]

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References

  1. 1 2 "The Little Rumor Site That Could". WIRED . 15 July 2004. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  2. ↑ "The Faces of Web 2.0". Entrepreneur. 4 October 2006. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  3. ↑ Lawson, Stephen (4 April 2004). "Spymac Rolls Out Free E-Mail". PCWorld . Retrieved 2017-11-11.
  4. ↑ Olsen, Stefanie (6 April 2004). "Spymac follows Google on free gig of storage". CNET . CBS Interactive . Retrieved 4 December 2017.
  5. ↑ Cassia, Fernando (20 May 2004). "SPYMAC.com offers 1GB free E-mail". The Inquirer. Incisive Business Media. Archived from the original on February 16, 2013. Retrieved 4 December 2017.CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  6. ↑ Roach, Christopher (8 February 2005). "Spymac's Wheel vs. Dot Mac for Easy Web Services". MacDevCenter.com. O’Reilly Media . Retrieved 4 December 2017.
  7. ↑ Cashmore, Pete (17 January 2007). "SpyMac Relaunches as Ugly YouTube Clone". Mashable . Retrieved 4 December 2017.
  8. ↑ Birtles, Jasmine (1 December 2009). The Money Magpie: I can help you ditch your debts, make money and save £1000s. Random House. p. 226. ISBN   9781407027357.
  9. 1 2 Hoskyn, Jane (12 March 2007). "Spymac beats YouTube to revenue-sharing prize". ItNews. Nextmedia . Retrieved 4 December 2017.
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