Livestreaming app Blab, which amassed 3.9 million users in just one year, shut down this weekend, its CEO Shaan Puri announced with a post on Medium late Friday.
The app, which competed with Twitter’s Periscope, Facebook Live, IBM-owned UStream.tv and other media companies in the livestreaming game, was created at Monkey Inferno, a tech incubator self-funded by the founders of Bebo, Michael and Xochi Birch.
In his post, Puri promised his team would come back with a new product, but was retiring Blab because of churn, basically.
Only 10% of users came back everyday to use Blab, the CEO admitted. And users weren’t coming back to the platform to watch archived streams on replay, he wrote.
Puuri hinted that a new product would focus more on social features and less on content:
“Blab was great in many ways, but it wasn’t going to be an everyday thing for millions. So we’re kicking down the sandcastle, and re-building it as an ‘always on’ place to hang with friends.”
Whether or not the Blab team can manage a successful pivot into another very competitive corner of social media has yet to be seen.
Other companies vying to provide the top spot where friends can hang out in groups online includes, obviously, Facebook, Google and Snapchat, but also upstarts like Rabbit, Oncam and scores of others.
