A few days on, here’s what the media and webloggia thinks about UpMyStreet (where I have worked for the last eight months or so) going into administration:
- Bowblog
“While I was running another.com, we thought the UMS guys were golden. They were supposed to have survived the bust, they were supposed to have a bullet-proof (at least not chewing gum and string) service-based business model with recurring revenues. They had groovy, meaningful technology and excellent people who weren’t running dog dot.com opportunists. What happened, guys?” - Blog.org
“I hope that someone decides to pick up its assets and do something with them. The idea of linking information and discussion to postcodes is an excellent one and with the growth of location-based services of all kinds the site is bound to have a future – its directors say it is “only months from turning a profit”.” - Guardian New Media Diary
“Diary was disappointed last week to chronicle the demise of UpMyStreet, the innovative dotcom that allows you to check house prices, crime rates, listings and so on in any given area. The site is to go into administration in the hope of finding new backers. UpMyStreet was one of the few good ideas of the dotcom goldrush.” - NewMediaZero
“There’s no doubt that UpMyStreet provides a unique, quality service online.
Its distribution on the Web through third-party commercial sites is second to none. It’s been backed by News International, which has helped its move onto Sky’s interactive areas. And it’s also deeply involved with Government plans to bring public services online.” - NTK
“It’s not often – but, we guess, not rare enough either – that a company gets slashdotted and receivershipped in the same week. But that’s what’s just happened to one of Britain’s pluckiest start-ups, UpMyStreet.” - Whitelabel.org:
“Buy my baby, please.”
In related news – some of my co-workers are prudently updating their CVs just in case the worst does come to past and the company doesn’t find a buyer.