Bye-Bye WebFives, We Hardly Knew Ya

In an attempt to keep up with the vastly changing community of photo/video/audio sharing sites, Microsoft has bought WebFives.

Designed as a social networking site WebFives offers a free account that provides users with a personal Web site, a mobile site available on all Internet enabled phones, a WebFives player and widget, which can be embedded on most other social networking pages, plus the promise to make money and benefit charity. They also boast a “stunning quality” made possible by incorporating advertising.

If you are now ready to open an account with WebFives don’t jump just yet. Microsoft will be temporarily shutting down WebFives service. Since Microsoft has acquired all rights to WebFives technology according to WebFives CEO Mike Toutonghi, we can only guess that Microsoft will be building a product that is Microsoft branded in order to establish their own identity before a re-launch.

As for WebFives, current users have been sent back to square one. Microsoft and WebFives have given current users until the end of the year to take down any content they would like to keep. After that all content will be taken down until the re-launch. There is currently no mention of when users can expect that to happen. This is a potential problem as more and more network sites sprout up. It’s annoying to build an online presence , only to have it removed when a company shutters its doors or is acquired by another organization. Something to think about before you get too detail oriented on new Web sites.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.