Ask HN: whither Billmonk?
My roommates and I have been happily using Billmonk (http://www.billmonk.com) for years. Today, it appears to have vanished. I knew the service wasn't really being actively developed since the Obopay acquisition, but that's OK, it was perfect for us as it was! I don't recall seeing any "we're shutting down" message, and there's no status blog I could find - the company blog has been dormant for over a year.
So, with that:
1) Does anyone here know what's up with Billmonk - are they just having a nasty server problem that they're not motivated enough to fix, or has the plug been pulled sans announcement?
2) Anyone have contact info for the [former] Billmonks? (I believe they were a YC company? Not 100% sure.) My roommates and I have some valuable (to us, no one else) data in there... at a minimum, we'd like to have our final totals so we can settle up; ideally, we'd love to have our history.
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I haven't been at Obopay since late 2007, so don't have much knowledge about how BillMonk is being handled today. However I reached out the company and will be speaking with them this week. I can't promise that there will be any sort of resolution, but I will strongly encourage the company to (a) clearly communicate to users about what's happening with the service on the BillMonk blog (outage or shut down), and (b) if the plan is in fact to shut down BillMonk, to provide users with a way to export their data.
Please check the BillMonk blog (http://blog.billmonk.com) over the next week or two for updates - hopefully the company will post an update there. I'll also monitor this post to answer any follow up questions.
However, I'm assuming that you didn't write that comment. In case, that comment was spoofed, you may want to write a disclaimer
http://billmonk.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/billmonk-now-on-twi...
Btw, even I am one of the (now bugged) users of Billmonk. Enough said.
If you grep through your cache files for "layout.addDataset", that line of code is what draws the pie chart of what you're owed on your dash.
That page is likely to have your biggest debts and loans. Good Luck.
If you're in the same boat, we've since moved to http://www.splitmybill.ie -- a service that has more or less duplicated Billmonk's use cases. Very basic, but meets our needs.
The ability to get export history from billmonk would be great though.
Funny how this kind of website is really useful.
"We just received the latest word that BillMonk is targeted to be back up and operational by Monday (9/20/2010) afternoon. We have done some upgrades and modifications to the software that will make it better than before."
I've noticed they've been more and more unrealiable over the last few months - i.e. random fatal errors, recurring bills going weeks without occurring.
I even recently started developing a clone for my flatmates and I to use in Django, shame it couldn't wait until it was ready :)
http://itunes.apple.com/app/mr-moneybags-iou/id342122272?mt=...
[Disclosure: I'm one of the founders of BillPad]
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