Sep 28, 2010 08:05 GMT  ·  By

Xmarks the popular bookmarking sync service for IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari will be shut down in three months' time. The service, though quite popular in terms of users, hasn't been able to generate the revenue it needed to stay afloat.

"As I write this, it’s a typical Sunday here at Xmarks. The synchronization service continues operating quietly, the servers chugging along syncing browser data for our 2 million users across their 5 million desktops," Todd Agulnick, cofounder and CTO of Xmarks, started off the blog post.

"The day isn’t over yet, but we’re on track to add just under 3000 new accounts today. Tomorrow, however, will hardly be anything but typical, for tomorrow one of our engineers will start a script that will email each of our users to notify them that we’ll be ceasing operations in around 90 days," he announced.

Xmarks is a cross-browser bookmarking service. It started off as Foxmarks, a Firefox add-on which would enable users to keep their bookmarks in sync across the computers they used. The first prototype was built in 2006.

The service grew quickly and now counts two million users. Early last year, versions of the Foxmarks add-on were created for Internet Explorer and Safari. The service was rebranded Xmarks as a consequence.

The company tried to monetize the service by leveraging the huge amount of data it acquired from its users. The selection of bookmarks from two million users provided an authoritative and curate data set on the most popular websites for various topics.

However, the company was not able to translate the data in a search experience that would appeal to a lot of users. The search feature was great for specific topics, but was terrible at facts and providing answers.

A niche search engine which was more like a domain directory had no chance of surviving in a world where Google dominated search. The fact that both Google Chrome and Firefox 4 now come with comprehensive built-in bookmark sync features didn't help.

With no substantial revenue coming and funding running out Xmarks looked for buyers. While there were several interested parties, the talks fell through leaving the company with the only solution, closure.