Abandoned software, or “abandoned-ware”
can be a difficult idea to understand, especially if you’re using that
software. Being a part of the software’s development and being tied to the
abandoned-ware is a permanent mark on your background with the Internet we know
today.
Xtranormal
was a seemingly cool web application that let you convert text to animated
movies. You could make pigs act out plays, or send inside jokes voiced by
animals to co-workers. Their application showed up on viral YouTube videos and
even commercials on TV until one day it was taken down and a temporary site was
put in its place. Then the temporary site was taken down too.
Xtranormal’s
development team had abandoned their software. What I don’t understand is why
they didn’t just keep what they had up for the public? If they wanted to work
on mobile apps, that’s fine. The reality is their Xtranormal software was
popular (I remember using it when it was online) and they could’ve slapped a few
ads on their site and let it ride a gravy train online. Web and mobile apps are
huge right now, like $50,000 a day off ads on flappy bird huge.
The
studio abandoning their web application has received nothing since August 2013
when the service was shut down. Not only that but the developers have to
acknowledge on their resume that they worked on that abandoned product. If I’m
a tech company I’m not sure if that will change how I feel about hiring.
Gabe
Newell of Valve software recently did a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” and commented
on the question: “What do AAA gaming companies look for when hiring”.
“We
look for a history of shipping things. There is no substitute for shipping
things that make your customers happy.”
It’s
hard to identify what projects might follow the abandoned software path. Some
of the more famous applications like Napster were reborn and merged with
another company. I think potential software to be abandoned might be Adobe’s
flash. They’re making pushes to modernize it and make it work better with other
plateforms but you can kind of see HTML5 taking over that web application
space.
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