Mig33
» see mig33.com as it lived, on the wayback machine
~ the last words ~
mig33 was regional at the cultural layer, not the technical one. the app ran on java me feature phones first, then android. the user base sat almost entirely in southeast asia and the gulf-state migrant corridors. ankara had msn through the same period and the iphone-era whatsapp wave caught everyone who survived msn. mig33 never had a turkish moment.
steven goh and mei lin ng started the company in perth in 2006. the headquarters moved to singapore in 2012 once the asia user base outgrew the founder geography. peak was january 2017 with 33 million monthly active users and a stable of 3000 in-app artists, courtesy of the alivenotdead.com acquisition from june 2014. for a few years the app was the dominant chat surface for indonesian and filipino domestic workers in saudi arabia and the uae.
the brand pivoted to migme on 10 june 2014. the company tried to become a creator-economy platform with in-app coins for artists and live-stream rooms. solaris power cells made an acquisition offer in 2017 and the deal collapsed. the asx delisted migme limited on 22 august 2017. the year ended with a $23.1 million after-tax loss and the app went offline in early 2018.
~ the record ~
| Born | 2006, Perth Australia, founders Steven Goh and Mei Lin Ng |
|---|---|
| Peak | 33 million monthly active users in January 2017 |
| Killed | App offline early 2018, ASX delisting 22 August 2017 |
| Lifespan | 12 years |
| Made by | Project Goth / Mig33 / migme Limited |
| Killed by | Failed 2017 Solaris Power Cells acquisition, $23.1M loss |
~ the early days ~
mig33 worked because feature phones were still the dominant compute surface in indonesia and the philippines through 2010. data plans were sold by the megabyte and the app made chat cheap by routing over data rather than sms. for several years the indonesian gateway to internet identity ran through mig33, ahead of whatsapp's full localization push and ahead of the cheap-smartphone wave that arrived in 2013.
~ the long tail ~
the migme rebrand had the right read on creator monetization a decade early. coin-based tipping for streamers was a 2014 idea that turned into a multi-billion-dollar industry by 2022 under different brand names. mig33's founders had the indonesia thesis correct but were a generation early on the monetization stack, and the company never owned the second-act platform that built on top of the lesson.
~ leave a rose ~
an anonymous tribute. one rose per visitor per day.
@}-->-- ... roses left here
~ leave a wreath ~
a rose fades by morning. a wreath stays on this grave for good, with your name on it.
from $1, paid once through stripe. it keeps the graveyard running: the hosting and the nightly digging. adopt it and the headstone reads "maintained in memory by" you. the groundskeeper plants new wreaths at the next tending, usually within a day.
» one email a week: new graves and the anniversaries of the dead. subscribe
other messengers: Skype Lite, Microsoft Kaizala, Windows Live Messenger, Gadu-Gadu
~ leave a note ~
visitors before you have left these graveside notes. anonymous welcome.