When we launched Kasabi we set out with a big vision that encompassed new ways to publish, share and create value from data. Our goal was to create a self-service environment that made it easier to publish data using a standard set of APIs, and support developers in finding and using that data. In this we’ve been moderately successfull: feedback on the site and features have generally been positive. There’s a lot of things that I think we got right and a lot more that we’d do differently. Over the last 2 years we’ve learnt an incredible amount. Not just about data publishing but also about a million and one other things that you encounter when running a startup.
However its time to admit that Kasabi is not getting the traction we thought it would. For many reasons, organisations are not yet ready to fully embrace data marketplaces. We are still too early in the open data revolution for third-party data marketplaces to really have a clear niche. Many of the other startups exploring similar ideas have already begun to pivot and explore different aspects of their vision.
We have therefore made the difficult decision to shutdown Kasabi. We want to give people time to stop using the system and take away their data, so we are giving everyone three weeks notice, from today, that the service will no longer be available. This means the website and APIs will be shutdown by 30th July. We will stop accepting submissions of new data from Wednesday 11th July. We have already disabled new registrations to the site.
To ensure everyone can get their data, we’ll also be exporting the datasets and publishing them as an archive to allow anyone to take a copy. For all currently published datasets we will publish a spreadsheet containing links to allow anyone to download the data. If you have unpublished datasets, then please contact us for a copy.
If you have further questions or any concerns then please contact us:
D
07/09/2012
Thanks for everything you’ve done. Sorry it didn’t work out, but Kasabi still seems like it was on the right path. I know I’ve learned a great deal from your work.
Shaun Ellis
07/09/2012
Have you thought about releasing the Kasabi code under an open source license?
Dan
07/19/2012
it’s a pity. I started right now my dissertation project and kasabi food dataset was a fundamental part of it. I really appreciate the job you did…it’s a shame that “We are still too early in the open data revolution for third-party data marketplaces to really have a clear niche”.
Suggestions on how to export your dataset on my server? what about the APIs?
Leigh Dodds
07/19/2012
Hi Dan,
See out more recent post about the dataset archive. The food dataset is included so you could take it and use it locally. Hope that helps!
Cheers,
L
Dan
07/20/2012
OK, thanks Leigh for the advice.
Now my question is: How can I use these datasets?
Do I need a triplestore db (Jena, Sesame…)? Suggestions?