Lockerz

» see lockerz.com as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ how it landed ~

lockerz launched in september 2009 as an invite-only site for teenagers. the pitch was points, not posts. you signed up, logged in every day to watch short branded videos and answer polls, and earned PTZ that you could trade in the on-site shop. early prizes were flip video cameras and ipod nanos. the rewards economy was the whole engagement loop. social features came later.

kathy savitt, a former amazon executive, founded the company in 2009 with funding from kleiner perkins caufield and byers and liberty media. early reporting placed the seed round in the high single-digit millions, and by october 2012 lockerz had raised about $80 million total. growth was unusually fast for the era. the company claimed around 16 million members within twelve months and 19 million by july 2011, spread across 195 countries.

the addressable demographic was the late-teen-to-early-twenties anglosphere user with a debit card and a tolerance for branded video. lockerz never had any meaningful turkish presence and i did not run into it at the time. the pattern it ran on, points-for-attention then redeem-for-stuff, was familiar from older loyalty programs but rare on the social web of the late 2000s, and it briefly looked like a real category.

~ the record ~

~ the early days ~

through 2010 and 2011 lockerz expanded into adjacent products. lockerz play arrived march 2010 as the video content arm. the connect social platform launched october 2010 and turned the site into something that looked more like a feed, and lockerz shop opened in july 2011 with about 200 rotating brands per week. acquisitions stacked up alongside. plixi, the twitter photo app, came in january 2011. addtoany, the social-share widget, followed in july 2011. off and away, a travel auction site, arrived in december 2011, and chick approved came as a fashion community pickup in may 2012. live nation put money in for entertainment ties.

~ the fall ~

the PTZ economy never quite balanced. early users redeemed for high-margin electronics that lockerz subsidized to drive engagement, and as the user base grew the per-user subsidy stayed expensive. the january 2012 pivot to beachmint, the celebrity-branded ecommerce holding company that owned jewelmint and stylemint, was the visible turn. the lockerz brand kept publishing for a while but the points engine slowed and the catalog shrank, and the kohl's deal that was supposed to give the site retail muscle never reached the user base in any visible way. kathy savitt left in august 2012 for yahoo.

~ the long tail ~

by 2013 the connect social tab was inactive in long stretches. the storefront ran on residual inventory. through the summer of 2014 the lockerz.com domain quietly stopped serving the rewards site. beachmint itself was acquired by lucky brand parent lucky magazine partners that same year and the lockerz name disappeared from the corporate filings. there is no public archive of the PTZ ledger or the final outstanding balances. the points just ended.

@}-->--

              )
             (_)
            .-'-.
            |   |
            |   |
            |   |
            |   |
          __|   |__   .-.
       .-'  |   |  `-:   :
      :     `---'     :-'
       `-._       _.-'
           '""""""

« previous  ·  random  ·  next »