When AppLoop launched its self-service platform for tracking and advertising on mobile applications last July, we were quite impressed. Leveraging the iPhone 3G’s native GPS capabilities, AppLoop’s geo-aware mobile ad network was able to tell when a consumer was close to a specified business address and serve up ads for that business accordingly.
Last October, the startup came out with the App Generator, a nifty tool that turned any online publication with an RSS feed into a separate iPhone application.
Now, we’re hearing rumors that the startup is in trouble, and they appear to hold some truth. For one, the company’s website has been down for the past two days. Worse, a quick glance on Twitter suggests that the service’s downtime is also causing iPhone apps using AppLoop libraries to crash.
We would hate to see the young company fade away, so we’re hoping this is a technical glitch which is simply taking a lot of time to repair. But the two startup’s founders are eerily silent about the downtime on their blogs and Twitter accounts, so it might be idle hope.
We’ve contacted AppLoop and will update this post accordingly as soon as we get some insight on what’s happening.
Update: after an e-mail from co-founder Eric Kerr, we’re putting the company in the deadpool as they effectively had to shut the service down ‘for a variety of financial and legal based reasons’. Kerr claims users have been sent an e-mail several weeks ago and that some might not have received it. I’m not so sure, but I definitely think it’s bad form not to put a message on your website or blog about the demise of your company.
(Hat tip to Philip Roy for the heads up)