Zenly, the favored social mapping app that Snap acquired 5 years in the past, goes to close down on February third, 2023. That is going to be a tragic day as there may be nothing fairly like Zenly.
The workforce primarily based in Paris managed to create an app that was on the intersection of a utility app and a social app. Extra importantly, opening Zenly and utilizing it each day was a pleasant expertise. The app ought to be thought-about as one of the crucial polished and modern social app of all time — and an vital instance for different social app builders.
Zenly’s principal function allows you to sustain with your folks’ places. If you open the app, you may see if family and friends members are hanging out collectively and the place they’re proper now. On high of that, Zenly has one of the crucial vibrant messaging expertise in a social app.
Extra lately, Zenly added locations. It was probably the most private database of locations as you can see your folks’ favourite bars and eating places and even see their very own private map of locations. It rapidly grew to become a contemporary Foursquare for my group of associates.
The event workforce additionally began rolling out its personal maps. Primarily, Zenly was loopy sufficient to suppose that it may compete with Google Maps and Apple Maps with a workforce of 10 folks engaged on a mapping mission.
As a substitute of offering probably the most correct map on the earth, it was probably the most playful and iconic map app on my cellphone. You can see animated vehicles, boats, rubber geese, vehicles, sea creatures, and many others. I spent fairly a little bit of time flying over Paris and discovering new areas.
Picture Credit: Zenly
Zenly was based in 2011. The startup was rising properly, however issues grew to become critical after the 2017 acquisition by Snap. Earlier this 12 months, Zenly reached 35 million month-to-month energetic customers.
And 2022 has been a pivotal 12 months for the social app. After launching a whole redesign, Zenly’s co-founder and CEO Antoine Martin left the corporate. “We joined Snap 5 years in the past and we began engaged on Zenly 11 years in the past. I wish to transfer on. And I haven’t had the chance to take a protracted paternity depart,” Martin advised me in an interview earlier this 12 months.
A couple of months later, Snapchat’s guardian firm Snap stunned everybody by asserting that it will shut down Zenly as a part of a spherical of layoffs. Positive, Zenly wasn’t as massive as Snapchat. Positive, there was no monetization technique. Nevertheless it was a preferred, modern and intensely promising app.
And but, Snap determined that it didn’t wish to promote Zenly to a different firm or create a spin-off firm. Zenly would have turn into a competitor — specifically, it will have been a substitute for Snap Map.
All of this leads us to the tip of Zenly, the social app that helped you spend extra time with associates and uncover new locations. I created my Zenly account on July 30, 2015 (or 2,685 days in the past). And now, I’ve 59 days remaining to make use of the app. It sucks.
Picture Credit: Zenly
