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]
References
edit- ^ a b "The Little Rumor Site That Could". WIRED. 15 July 2004. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
- ^ "The Faces of Web 2.0". Entrepreneur. 4 October 2006. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
- ^ Lawson, Stephen (4 April 2004). "Spymac Rolls Out Free E-Mail". PCWorld. Retrieved 2017-11-11.
- ^ Olsen, Stefanie (6 April 2004). "Spymac follows Google on free gig of storage". CNET. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
- ^ 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.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Roach, Christopher (8 February 2005). "Spymac's Wheel vs. Dot Mac for Easy Web Services". MacDevCenter.com. O’Reilly Media. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
- ^ Cashmore, Pete (17 January 2007). "SpyMac Relaunches as Ugly YouTube Clone". Mashable. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Hoskyn, Jane (12 March 2007). "Spymac beats YouTube to revenue-sharing prize". ItNews. Nextmedia. Retrieved 4 December 2017.