When Microsoft shuts down Firefly.com next week, it will mean the end of one of the Net's oldest and most historically significant communities. "In preparation for the launch of Microsoft Passport, we will be shutting down this Firefly Web site and its associated services on August 18," reads a message posted 4 August to Firefly.com.
Not exactly a stirring epitaph for one of the Web's pioneering discussion forums.
See also: MIT: E-Commerce Just Beginning
After all, Firefly is more than just another failed Microsoft Web venture. As far back as 1996, the technology, and the community that piggybacked on top of it, stood out as one of the most potent properties anywhere.
In essence, Firefly was a collaborative filter -- a technology that asked users what they liked, learned their tastes in music, then got them in touch with people having similar tastes.
Five years and several new paradigms later -- and following the company's 1998 buyout by Microsoft -- the light is going out for good on the forums. The underlying technology will live on, however, powering Redmond's e-commerce efforts.
Some of the service's users clearly long for the good old days.
"What the hell happened to the fly?" wrote one displaced Firefly user in an MSN forum. "It went down for a few days and then BLAM!!!!!! ... They decided to shut it down ... Does anybody remember when there was over 400 people on at one time in the fly?"
MIT professor Patti Maes does. She headed up the software agents group at MIT's Media Lab and led the development of the technology that would eventually spin off to become Firefly.
In 1995, Maes, along with three grad students, developed a program called Helpful Online Music Recommendations (HOMR). It used intelligent agent technology to provide music lovers with suggestions about bands they might like. The company incorporated in 1995 as Agents Inc.
The company first developed a flashier, fuller-featured version of HOMR. It hoped to run a lucrative content site, helping advertisers reach narrowly targeted users -- for example, telling only people likely to appreciate Elvis Costello about the musician's new release.
The company later began pursuing a strategy of licensing its software tools to others who wanted to provide collaborative filtering services. A first round of venture capital financing in late 1995 brought the young company US$2.6 million.
In 1996, Agents Inc. announced that it would henceforth be known as Firefly Network. It was concerned that the original name sounded too threatening and sinister for users to trust.
By mid-1997, the company had become a standard-bearer for "Open Profiling," and was working with Microsoft and Netscape, among others, to establish rules and regulations for how sites handled information about their users.
That work was eventually folded into the World Wide Web consortium's Platform for Privacy Preferences effort, a nascent standard that would automate the negotiation of personal information sent to Web sites by individuals.
In June 1997, The New York Times Magazine featured Firefly as an archetypal example of the struggling Internet start-up. The article addressed the company's efforts to deal sensibly with Microsoft.
"The reality of the software business today is that if you find something that can make you ridiculously rich, then that's something Microsoft is going to want to take from you," the article quoted chief technologist Max Metral as saying.
"All we can do is meet with them and try to see what they're going to do to us when they feel like doing it."
Microsoft subsequently bought the company in 1998 and incorporated its technology into the MSN services group. Now, with usage dwindling to, at most, 200 simultaneous users, it will finally put Firefly out of its misery.
"It really didn't make sense to offer two sites that offer comparable services," said Margie Miller, product manager of Microsoft's consumer commerce group.
"Change is always difficult."
The underlying Firefly code has already been incorporated into the company's forthcoming Microsoft Passport -- a centralized log-in hub for any Web service requiring registration.
Microsoft said that the company would welcome any constructive suggestions from Firefly community members.
"When they provide us with some actionable suggestions, we will be looking into them," Miller said.
Additional reporting by Jen Sullivan.
Related Wired Links:
Click Here for a Privacy Policy
6.Apr.1999
Firefly: From the Media Lab to Microsoft
9.Apr.98
Microsoft Buys Into Privacy
9.Apr.98
