Fluent, The Sparrow-Like Webmail Service, Shuts Down
Remember Fluent? It was a webmail service which made your Gmail look like now-defunct iOS and Mac app Sparrow.
Now, like Sparrow (and the similar-looking Tweetie before it), Fluent is dead.
Fluent.io, to give it its full kennel name, not only made your Gmail look a whole lot slicker but also turned it into a useful place to keep track of tasks. It featured instant search, easy discussions and support for multiple accounts. And now it has gone. Or will be when it shuts down at 5PM (Sydney time) on Friday August 17th.
Why? According to the Fluent team’s blog post, “There are many things that cause startups to rise and fall: fund raising, runways, scaling and other promising opportunities; they all played their part.”
And it wasn’t for lack of interest. In addition to the regular users who made it into the beta, 70,000 others were waiting, having signed up to be on the list (I was among them).
The problem appears to be free email, in that nobody wants to pay for either the service or the client. That’s why Sparrow sold to Google, and seems to be why Fluent is shutting down. Perhaps the only company still making money from e-mail these days is Google, and that’s because of the ads.
- Source Fluent Blog
Charlie Sorrel sits in his gadget nerve-center in Barcelona, Spain, and spits out words about various weird plastic widgets while the sun shines outside his iCave. Previously found at Wired.com's Gadget Lab covering cameras, power cables and sneaking in as much Apple-centric coverage as he could, Charlie spends his rare moments outside perched atop a bicycle and snapping photos. You can follow him on Twitter via 
