The messaging app is closing down after interest dwindled

Apr 29, 2017 22:50 GMT  ·  By

Yik Yak is shutting down, the company announced, after the messaging app started losing its shine. 

The location-based messaging app became very famous back in 2014. Since then, however, a lot of time has passed and people are no longer that interested in the tool.

The tool will begin winding down over the coming week, as they start "tinkering around with what's ahead" for their brand, technology and themselves, said Yik Yak co-founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington in a blog post.

Some of the company's engineers will be moving over to Square, Jack Dorsey's payments company, which paid $1 million to get them to switch. Square didn't want the app, though.

"We’re grateful to the users who made Yik Yak a place for laughs, camaraderie, stress relief, social comfort, news, memes, class recommendations, campus spirit, and so much more. We've loved being part of your college experience over the past four school years," the blog post reads.

The ups and downs

The two admit that building the app and the company that powered the app has been the "greatest, hardest, most enjoyable, most stressful, and ultimately most rewarding experience" they've had. Droll and Buffington also thank the team that worked on making the app special, as well as investors and mentors.

In the same post, they admit that sometimes they got it right with things they implemented, like the yakarma, or the Yik Yak socks, campus tours and so on, but also mention the times they missed the mark like when they removed the toggle button on handles.

It doesn't matter now, anyway, because the user base had dwindled quite a bit, especially after the platform became plagued by cyber bullying with few ways to combat it.

Therefore, if you've been using Yik Yak, you may want to start looking for an alternative if you haven't found one yet.