Jellyfish.com to Close
Update, 12:04am, 2/16: The last night of live chat was lively, with a rare appearance by Jellyfish co-founder Brian Wiegand, as well as several other employees (Heidi and Keith). It appears that the honor of Last Commenter in JF Chat goes to Logansdaddy_O as seen in this screenshot, the last before chat froze and a page refresh redirected to this page. JF will be missed. Thanks to Brian and Mark for the fun and the deals; I look forward to the launch of Alice.com.
Or, "They Shoot Jellyfish, Don't They?"
It's a sad day: Jellyfish.com, once a rewards program, then bought by Microsoft and turned into Microsoft Live Cashback, leaving Jellyfish to simply offer a once-weekdaily hour-long reverse auction, is finally being put out of its misery. Members of the program received an email late yesterday announcing that the final hourly "show" would be on Friday the 13th (fitting). All interactive services including chat will be disabled on Monday, 2/16. Members will have 90 days to cash out any remaining coins in their accounts.
The reaction to the news of the site's closure in Smack Chat today was that of sadness, though not surprise. Members discussed other venues to stay in touch with one another, including http://www.jellyf1sh.com, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123100715042, http://jellyfish.ning.com, http://www.sazze.com/chat, and http://netmisfits.com.
A chronology of my coverage of Jellyfish.com, from its opening to present, can be found here.
R.I.P., Jellyfish.com! (Not my pic, but a fitting tribute.)
Continue Reading to see the email sent to members. Many in chat today reported theirs going to their spam folder (as did mine), which where yours may be if you didn't receive it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. :(
Feel free to add your condolences in a comment.
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Important News Regarding Your SmackShopping Account
Monday, February 9, 2009 3:18 PM
From: "admin@smackshopping.com"
To: comparerewards@yahoo.com
Dear SmackShopping User,
Thank you for using SmackShopping and participating in the SmackShopping community over the past few years. Regrettably, we are closing down the site effective February 16, 2009. SmackShows, chats and other interactive SmackShopping services will be discontinued at this point. However, you will be able to redeem any coins you have accrued for 90 days (until May 15, 2009). At the end of 90 days the site will be brought down completely.
Please do not reply to this email, but if you have any questions, please contact us at questions@smackshopping.com.
Sincerely,
SmackShopping Team
Date: February 13, 2009 2:00 AM
this site was brought down by the greed of money sniffing jews
Date: February 13, 2009 10:39 PM
Awwww. My sympathies. You've scored some impressive finds there over the years. Sorry you're losing it.
What's up with sholom laine? A rather offensive joke, I'm thinking.
Date: February 17, 2009 7:59 PM
FWIW, I made the Jellyfish headstone long ago shortly after the news of the Microsoft purchase was released.
Just a bit of posthumous trivia now, I suppose.
Date: February 18, 2009 11:52 AM
This is indeed a sad day. I just went to check out the JellyFish (since they went to once a day itis hard to get on the net during taht time... and I see that it is gone. What is worse is that they only allow coin redemption of 5000 coins for either a GAP or JR.com $50 gift card. I guess those of us with under 5k coins are just screwed. STUPID MICROSOFT!!!