MingleNow.com's Failure Signals Social Networking Shakeout Ahead

The social networking shakeout officially began this week with the announcement that MingleNow.com, a property developed by BlueLithium and acquired by Yahoo, will be shutting down on January 7, 2008.

MingleNow.com surfaced in late 2005 as a "next generation social network" whose purpose was to "extend one's nightlife online." Its founders were social butterflies and sought to make MingleNow.com the glue that would link the people they met in clubs with online people who might be likely to frequent the same places. It is not clear whether the project ever had a clear business model or was just a neat toy for the founders to play with. MingleNow.com may be a casualty of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's 100-day effort to reel in Yahoo's sprawling mix of properties, which do not function cohesively and badly need rationalization.