'Anonymous' Social Network Anybeat Is Getting Bought And Shut Down ... ‎

* Home * Startups * Mobile * Gadgets * Europe * Video * More o Enterprise o Venture o Social o GreenTech o Gaming o Opinion o Drama * Events * CrunchBase Hot topics * Apple * Facebook * Google * Android * Disrupt NYC * Hackathon social Comment 1 inShare94 ‘Anonymous’ Social Network Anybeat Is Getting Bought And Shut Down. Dmitry Shapiro Going To Google+? Ingrid Lunden posted yesterday 1 Comments View Staff Page Follow me on twitter Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... → Learn More anybeat1 anybeat1 Anybeat, a social network that launched last year as a kind of “anti-Facebook” to meet people you don’t already know, is getting bought by another company and is shutting down. The company posted a message to its users a few hours ago noting that it would be closing up operations in two weeks. The service, which launched as a beta in September 2011 (we offered invites here), was founded by Dmitry Shapiro, who had also founded Veoh and at one point had been the CTO of MySpace. It’s been reported that he is moving to Google to head up Google +. Anybeat has posted news of the shutdown on its own page in Anybeat. In the note, Anybeat says that it is getting purchased by another company — it doesn’t say who — and that new owner will be “repurposing it to address a different type of community, and will not be operating Anybeat as is.” It has also offered a link to a Google Group that will let users stay in touch. It’s not clear how many users Anybeat picked up in its short life, but if you consider that Facebook now has 901 million active subscribers, that’s a pretty high bar to hit for any social network to consider itself as having reached a critical mass. Anybeat’s unique selling point was its option of anonymity — once something that seemed part and parcel of online personalities, but more recently — not least because of Facebook — replaced by full-on real name usage as the norm for many people. It’s unclear whether any of what Anybeat was doing will be carried over into whatever comes next. We are contacting Google and Dmitry to ask about the reports of his career move to Google +, and to ask for more details about who has bought the company. If reports of Shapiro’s move are true, could it be Google itself? Is that why the company is suggesting a Google Group to carry on relationships post-Anybeat? It would seem very ironic given that the note below says “I don’t do Google.” In the meantime, this is the note that Anybeat has posted to users: Crunchbase * DMITRY SHAPIRO Person: Dmitry Shapiro Companies: Altly, Veoh, Akonix Systems, MySpace Dmitry Shapiro is a serial Internet entrepreneur. He is currently the Founder and CEO of Anybeat (formerly known as Altly) a social networking startup. Prior to Altly, Dmitry was the CTO of MySpace Music. Prior to that Dmitry was the founder and CEO of Veoh Networks, one of the larger online video services (sold to Qlipso), founder and CEO of Akonix Systems, a P2P security company (sold to Quest Software), and Chairman of iList/Irata (sold to IGN). Prior to his entrepreneurial... Learn more Tags: Anybeat, social networks, google Sponsored Ads * Advertisement * * Advertisement * Sponsored Ads * * * * Sponsored Ads * * * * Got a Tip? Tell Us. close Got a Tip? TELL US. Your tip here... 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