Browster
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Browster was a San Francisco startup, one of the first companies to deliver previews of web pages. Its browser plug-in let users hover over a link to see a preview of the page without clicking, initially focused on speeding up search-engine results and later on MySpace profiles. It raised a $6 million first round from Advanced Technology Ventures, Vanguard Ventures, First Round Capital and individual investors.
02 / Browster FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Adoption never materialized: despite its novelty, fewer people than expected took the time to download and try the plug-in. Whether previews were actually a viable idea remained an open question, and similar competitors (Cooliris, Snap) pursued different techniques.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Product or service closed
TechCrunch (7 Jan 2007) reported San Francisco hover-preview plugin Browster appeared dead after GigaOm coverage earlier that week: browster.com was mostly down, CEO Scott Milener and an investor did not respond, and Milener’s LinkedIn showed a next company (Vieweo) with Browster unmentioned.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Browster drew attention in 2005 as one of the first web-page preview companies, with a browser plug-in that previewed pages on mouseover.
- 02
The company raised a $6 million first round from Advanced Technology Ventures, Vanguard Ventures, First Round Capital and individual investors.
- 03
A 2.0 release targeted MySpace, letting users hover over profile links to preview pages without clicking.
- 04
Adoption lagged expectations - fewer users than expected downloaded the plug-in - and the product shut down in 2007.
- 05
No reliable realized loss figure with clear subject, period and basis has been disclosed.