[matthewsimon]

You could read this as a cautionary tale about the difficulty in launching a social networking service: Even with $1.6 million cash (earmarked for a development project in Pakistan) and 500,000 mobile phone subscriber records (stolen from the incumbent telecom), their free service couldn't reach 5% market penetration and was shut down when it ran out of money.

[aurumpotest]

But it said in the article that they decided to keep penetration under 1% of the population so as not to arouse suspicion.

Plus, they had a lot more limitations than your average Silicon Valley startup. (edit: second point)

[ianhawes]

There was simply no way to monetize the service.