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What happened to SpyMac?

SpyMac LogoI can remember a few years ago when SpyMac was all the rage. It was a very up-and-coming Mac community that tried to do everything and with style. Now it seems like a social media crash site.

I guess classic SpyMac is a better representation of what it use to be. It was a huge Mac community with pretty good web hosting options, free email with tons of space and a decent forum community. It seemed to have a lot of drive, dedicated people and a large user base.

Now, when you visit the SpyMac homepage, the only decent looking aspect is the logo. The rest of the site has gone to crap.

It’s now all focused around some money making, “you wanna be a star” scheme. It seems that you can upload your videos and pictures in order to win cash and prizes.

I guess SpyMac is just a blast from the past. A Mac community that couldn’t say above the water and has since sold out to other interests. No longer is it a community of style and Mac enthusiasts, but rather a social dumping ground. I guess there’s a reason I forgot all about it.


8 Responses

  1. Johannes says:

    Heh, yeah – I just visited SpyMac today after over a year of absence, and if it wasn’t for the logo I would’ve thought I was visiting another site entirely. It’s a shame that something as aspiring as SpyMac would turn out like this.

  2. The Havoc says:

    Holy shit, I visited Spymac after a pair of years. Almost cried. What have they done?? I first thought it had been hacked or something, but no, it was for real.

    R.I.P., Spymac.

    🙁

  3. Kiran says:

    yea, I just logged in after years of absence. I thought they’d become THAT much cooler cause of all the developments in the apple world. when their homepage loaded, I checked my address, checked again, maybe there was a hyphen or it was a .net. Wrong.

    I’ve crashed into a brick wall a few miles thick called reality.

  4. Craig says:

    I know the feeling. I’ve been using WIndows my entire life, a loyal fan if you will. But Spymac was a lovely community, that nearly had me going to the Mac, just for that.

    Too bad they had to turn into [i]this[/i]. Any details on exactly what happened?

  5. DigiCat says:

    Once a very active member of the Spymac community many moons ago, I remember thinking right about the time they released “Club” and “Wheel” privys, that the site was starting to become less focused on membership and interaction with fellow Mac advocates as a whole- and instead would likely end up as some way for the owners to turn their user base into a cash-cow. The following “revisions” to the site did nothing to improve matters – glitches, problems, poor design, etc. ad nausium.

    Haven’t been there in probably 2 years or so. Although my account is still considered “active” there – after landing on the current homepage, I wouldn’t visit again.
    Indeed, it’s turned into one horrid mess – ugly as sin, and it’s too bad that what was once such a beautiful happy little place in its infancy has grown up into just another internet attention-Wh* Ah, you know what I mean.
    Granted, you can still view *cough* “Spymac Classic” – but it’s a mere shadow of its former self.

    Most of us ran away from the carnage quite some time ago. Proof enough, if you forget what made you in the first place – you’re headed down a road to mediocracy.
    Now it’s some Multi-media outhouse with a shameless “We’ll make YOU a star!” plug of a website, that does nothing well, and completely killed all the funny and comradeship that keep us “old timers” coming back.

    Good Jorb, Geniuses.

  6. zy says:

    you guys might wanna read this thread if you wish to know what happen.
    Cheers

    http://classic.spymac.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=272166

  7. bob vila says:

    As with many social networking sites, they need a revenue model that works…even facebook at 200 million users needs to keep dipping into venture capital pools. Look forward to the second ingternet bubble where companies like facebook and twitter are peggedaqt billions are actually not even close to being worth those amounts. These guys don’t know how to make money off of their users to pay for all the fancy programming, hed offices adn marketing!

  8. t says:

    Spymac died soon after some legal wrangling between the folks running it and Apple. It was about unannounced Apple tech being outed before Apple could do it. Therefore killing the element of surprise. That’s how Apple likes to do it. Anyway, there is Appleinsider(I can’t seem to be able to comment there) and Macrumors.
    But yeah I remember the days of Spymac way way back in 2001 when I got my first iMac. Flowerpower. WOW! 500 mhz, 256 megs of ram, cd read/write, two firewire and two usb. Hot damn! And it had 16 megs of dedicated video memory. I was in heaven. Never a problem. I still have it underneath a cabinet in my girlfriend’s kitchen. Later on I went to Wegener Media and got an iMac g4 17 inch off lease from the Red Cross. That screen is amazing!!!! Too bad it can’t support Leopard and has crappy DDR memory. I currently own a unibody macbook. So freaking powerful. It’s sad though cause I always wanted the pismo powerbook. I still remember when they went on clearance soon after Apple came out with the Ti Powerbooks. They were running $1800 almost everywhere. I was so hungry for that thing but couldn’t afford it. Now after so many years you can’t really find it even on ebay. parts and stuff is what you’ll really come across. But over at Wegener Media they still have some at $299.00 but they won’t run the latest Apple OS.
    Maybe just maybe I’ll pick up the 500 mhz for nostalgia purposes. Maybe.

    That’s the way it is.

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