Vox.com to close

Six Apart has announced that it is shutting down its Vox blog network on September 30th. The company is encouraging users to migrate to their standard Typepad platform.

Vox aimed to provide a greater degree of social networking to blogging, along with stronger privacy controls.

However, as with many social networking websites, it enjoyed a short burst of popularity and then began to die slowly.

Considering the extensive number of blogs on Vox.com, the platform was only able to generate 5.7 million unique visitors a month, according to Comscore – small fry for a social network site.

Those who have the care and inclination to be critical suggest Six Apart failed to push the platform seriously, and then left it out to dry for too long.

Rumours persist that the company is shutting down Vox in order to become more streamline, in preparation for a merger – a charge denied within Six Apart – but remains to be seen how it plays out.

While it remains sad that yet another internet name is about to disappear, there are few who are going to lament its going.

However, there remains the chance that Six Apart can benefit extra from shutting down Vox – by recommending users migrate to Typepad, there remains the possibility of new paid subscribers for the company.

And the domain name Vox.com would likely be worth a bob or two on the domain sale market.

In the meantime, after this month, Vox will become another footnote in the continuing story of the development of the internet.