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"Word is\u00A0circulating that before the weekend Slingshot Labs fired all its employees and drew the shades on the windows. The incubator for technologies that could be implemented into MySpace is now kaput.\r\n\r\nEarlier this year rumor was out that perhaps Slingshot's days were numbered. TechCrunch ran a story opposing the information, claiming that as one of Slingshot Lab's projects (SocialPlan) was\u00A0acquired\u00A0by MySpace, the project had legs. Any word on employees being let go were mere merely employees being move from Slingshot to MySpace proper.\r\n\r\nWhile that last bit may have been true, the larger thrust of the original ValleyWag story was true; Slingshot was in serious\u00A0trouble. Now it seems that that trouble was terminal, the entire operation now resting six feet below.\r\n\r\nThe question becomes why the project was allowed to live on if it has been in the sights of shutdown for so long. There had been a lingering project and shield of\u00A0protection\u00A0that had kept Slingshot on a respirator, but \u00A0both failed. \u00A0When ex-MySpace CEO DeWolfe was pushed out, Slingshot entered decline.\r\n\r\nWithout a main cheerleader, it lost its sheen of executive\u00A0privilege\u00A0and untouchability. However a serious\u00A0project to build a LinkedIn competitor for the Wall Street Journal was in the works, and for some time was enough to float the lab. That project parashies with Slingshot.\r\n\r\nIt's all over for Slingshot, and with\u00A0stagnant\u00A0traffic and little innovation at MySpace it is hard to wonder if the future of the latter will follow the past of the former.\r\n\r\nImage Credit."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/05/24/slingshot-labs-is-dead-news-corp-axes-the-myspace-idea-incubator/>