StatusNet Launching New SaaS – Stops Accepting New Members for Year Old Service

StatusNet announced this morning that it will unveil a new service and is deferring accepting new members on StatusNet Cloud Service, the offering it launched last year.

StatusNet Cloud Service launched last March with personal, community and private plans that were offered as a SaaS. Initial customers included Motorola Corporation and Canonical Ltd.

StatusNet OnDemand is the new service that the company is launching. No date is set. It will be focused on businesses and organizations and is designed for companies to create enterprise networks and connect with colleagues.

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This is a definite repositioning of a service that is barely a year old. In a blog post, Founder Evan Prodromou says that 45,000 sites were built in the past year for StatusNet Cloud Service. From experience, I know most of these kinds of sites on networks such as these go unused. They are like those abandoned wikis that wilt when not updated. That’s true of sites that get abandoned on a blog network, too.

New users may sign up for a sneak-peek invitation to StatusNet OnDemand when it releases. StatusNet Cloud Service sites will remain active and supported. Sites do not have to be moved. People may also choose to manage StatusNet themselves by downloading and putting it on a hosting service.

Prodromou says the change means the following:

• Those without a private site on the StatusNet cloud will be invited to try the StatusNet OnDemand product at launch time.
• The logo, branding, and navigation have changed on the StatusNet site to reflect the new theme of the upcoming StatusNet 1.0.
• The website is being simplified to help people better understand what StatusNet on Demand is supposed to do.

StatusNet is a really smart group of people. If you did not know, identi.ca is the foundation for the open source microblogging service. It was one of the first services to emerge as a focal player in the movement around the real-time Web.

But its strength today is questionable. Identi.ca is under the radar and now StatusNet Cloud Service is not accepting new members. We’ll be watching to see if these guys can get things together and deliver on the promise that the team has.

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