This was certainly unexpected. For any number of reasons. A day before the planned shutdown of cloud-based storage service, lifelogging startup Narrative — or, rather, a group of former employees — has snatched itself from the jaws of death.
In an email sent to Narrative users, the company announced the launch of “New Narrative,” rising like the proverbial phoenix or one of those four Supermen that sprung up after Kal-El was killed by Doomsday. The new version of the company is quick to explain to its loyal fan base that the continuation of the service is only the beginning.
New Narrative will also be looking for funding to restart the production of the Narrative Clip 2, its second piece of lifelogging hardware that was introduced last year, offering up some key improvements over the first generation. In September, the company announced the end of both its hardware and software offerings.
I’ll admit that, at the time, I wasn’t terribly surprised by the outcome. What started as an intriguing little piece of hardware designed to capture small slices of life at regular intervals ultimately didn’t make a ton of sense in a world in which we’re already carrying multiple cameras on our person at any given time. But the device did develop a loyal following.
And a group of its former employees possess a strong enough belief in the product’s potential to press ahead. That doesn’t mean, however, that the company will operate as before. There will be a transfer of data to this new company that will result in some server downtime (though only one to two days, apparently) and there’s certain to be a shift in existing employment positions. Also, the company notes that since it will essentially be financing out of pocket,
It’s not possible for us to assume all the obligations of the former company. There is a small number of customers to the former company that have seen problems with their Clips. We can’t resolve any of those cases today, but we’ll try to find ways to offer repairs or other kinds of help, and hope to be able to provide information about this down the line.
We’ve reached out to reps from the new company for comment and will update as soon as we hear back.