Over the past years, many thumbnail providers have come and gone. Even some big name providers have gone belly up, since ShrinkTheWeb began offerings its services. This page serves as a farewell to the ones who have tried but didn't survive.
R.I.P. Thumbnail Providers
| Thumbnail Provider Name |
Cause of Death
|
Time of Death
|
 |
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| Snapito | Insufficient Resources |
November 11, 2014
|
| Notes: Promising up-and-coming competitor in the snapshotting space, but cited too much time required to make it work. Notes: Acquired by ShrinkTheWeb |
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| Snap.com | Unsustainable Business Model |
Est: October 2011
|
| Notes: This service is not quite the same as ShrinkTheWeb, though it is confusingly similar in that it shows screenshots of web pages to end-users. It does not, however, provide automated website screenshots as an integrated solution. Notes: Even though publicly endorsed by TechCrunch and with $10M in funding, this site was unable to build momentum. |
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| Pageglimpse | Insufficient Funding/Scalability | |
| Notes: Even though publicly promoted and backed by TechCrunch and editors, this site was unable to stay in the market. | ||
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| Snapcasa | Insufficient Funding/Scalability |
Est: October 2009
|
| Notes: Service broken through most of 2009; Completely abandoned during 2010 Notes: Converted to a Screenshot Provider Comparison site in 2012. Later acquired by URL2PNG. |
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| Thumbnails Pro | Insufficient Funding/Scalability |
August 15, 2009
|
| Notes: Acquired by E4Sites (service appears broken since that time) | ||
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| Alexa Site Thumbnail (AWS) | Flawed Pricing Model |
June 12, 2009
|
| Notes: Shutdown, almost 1 year to the day, after the official launch of ShrinkTheWeb | ||
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| Thmbnl | Catastrophic Data Loss |
January 30, 2009
|
| Notes: Project abandoned by ma.gnolia after they suffered a catastrophic, unrecoverable data loss Notes: Acquired by ShrinkTheWeb |
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| Website Thumbnails (.com & .net) | Insufficient Funding/Scalability |
August 30, 2008
|
| Notes: Acquired by ShrinkTheWeb | ||
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| Thumbalizr | Flawed Pricing Model |
-- Life Support --
|
| Notes: Lots of reports that "new captures" stop working for days or weeks at-a-time. Been in "BETA" (and broken) for years. | ||
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| Webshotspro | Flawed Pricing Model |
-- Life Support --
|
| Notes: Does not appear that anyone actively uses their service. No reply to emails, even years later! | ||
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Honorable Mention: Thumbnail Providers
...that never made it off the ground
| Thumbnail Provider Name | Thumbnail Provider Name | Thumbnail Provider Name |
|
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| BitPixels | PicDonkey (Dead) | SiteThumbshot |
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| Bildesel.de (Dead) | ScreenThumbs | MyThumbnail (Dead) |
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| Webseitentuning | Websitethumbnail.de (acquired by STW) | Picoshot (acquired by STW) |
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| mShots by WP (good for light use) | Thumbizy.com (Dead) | SuperScreenshot (Dead) |
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| Thumboo (good for light use) | WebShrinker | Mr-Thumb (acquired by STW) |
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| MyThumbshots (acquired by STW) | ||
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The problem in the niche is that this service is very expensive to operate for more than just a handful of heavy users. As services begin to get popular, they learn quickly that they cannot afford to keep up with demand. ShrinkTheWeb was designed from the ground up to be scalable and the founders invested the money to put it at the forefront, by utilizing only the best servers, redundancy, personnel, software, and proprietary technologies.
