It starts with,

Dear SpotM User,
SpotM was a communications product that we were experimenting within India. As of September 1st, 2009, we will be closing the site and it will no longer be accessible. We sincerely thank you for your participation and your valuable feedback. -The SpotM Team
That’s what the mortuary sign on yahoo’s social networking site SpotM spells out.  SpotM was always in a spot of bother since its experimental launch in India in the year 2008. I wonder why Yahoo has time and again mentioned “experimental”, it was most definitely an experiment with the social networking site in India as there was no official launch.

And although the site was expected to gain success due to popularity of social networks in India, SpotM wasn’t able to keep up the pace with already established social networks like Orkut and Facebook. In short, an experiment gone wrong, this went on for 11 months until now, which they finally decided to put to rest.

Like all social networking sites have a USP to pull in crowd, Spot M too had an array of features which allowed users to make friends with other users and make them private in case they do not want to disclose their relationship and also allow them to correspond through SMS without revealing their phone numbers.

Though SpotM was open to the public in these 11 months (you could sign in with your Yahoo ID), the team handing the site had been dismantled quite a while ago. And quite a contrary that it is, Yahoo has claimed that they want to make a buy in the social networking space! Infact, Yahoo has shut down at least three networking sites since the past year- to name, Yahoo360, Yahoo Mash and SpotM which all fell pray to the already established social networks in India. Okay, they have a reason. And it is that they believe in cutting down non-core or non performing products from their artillery.

None the less this leaves a mark on the credibility of Yahoo, whether they would be able to penetrate into the social networking world with their products. Though Yahoo! India has not given up on with the social networking concept and will now replace SpotM with Guru, however no information has been disclosed. Drawing from the experiences of Facebook, Yahoo might look to make a common theme in its social networking sites with minor adjustments. This leaves us with nothing but to wish Farewell to SpotM which will never be spotted on the social network category again.