S.F.-based sports social hub Fanvibe is ceasing operations, due in large part to ongoing labor unrest in the NBA. The two-year-old company last month was acquired by Atlanta-based BeRecruited.com, and the plan had been to operate each business as separate entities under their own brand names. But while BeRecruited.com, which seeks to link college athletic programs with non-elite prospects, will retain the former Fanvibe employees and back-end technology, company execs said it did not make economic sense to maintain the Fanvibe consumer-facing platform. Fanvibe's heavy base of basketball-related work included the development of NBA Turnstile, a check-in app distributed last season by NBA Digital, and a separate deal with Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and the Warriors.
"Given the uncertainty out there, it didn't look like we were necessarily going to get the distribution we wanted, and it didn't make sense to keep investing in those services," said Vishwas Prabhakara, newly installed as BeRecruited.com CEO as part of last month's acquisition. "The [Fanvibe] technology is still there, but we are 100 percent focused on BeRecruited.com right now." A goodbye message on the Fanvibe.com website said both the site and iPhone app are being discontinued, event check-ins and push alerts are also shutting down, and user data will be deleted in 30 days.
