Reading & thinking about the debate about content vs. connections, I was reminded of Trepia’s proximity-based instant messaging application, where the “buddy list” is really more of a “neighbor list” representing other Trepia users who are logged in nearby. My initial impression of the tool was that proximity is based on a common wireless access point (or network of APs), but I believe that the notion of proximity was expanded at some point to include larger geographical areas and may even have allowed users to specify a location they want to be associated with (regardless of whether they are in that location). The Trepia client includes a user profile, enabling users to provide some content, besides location, that might help to provide the catalyst for a chat. I can’t find many people talking about using it (outside of the period last spring/summer when they received a great deal of press attention). Some commentators have complained that they never saw anyone on the buddy list, and others complained that the geographic expansion was far too broad, showing too many people from too far away. In any case, I tried to visit the site today, and now see “Red Hat Enterprise Linux Test Page”. If anyone knows the whereabouts / status of Trepia, or has any recent experiences with the tool, please post a comment. Thanks.
Whither Trepia?
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4 responses to “Whither Trepia?”
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I’ve tried twice to go find out about this thing and get the same error
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If you are a member of the general public:
The fact that you are seeing this page indicates that the website you just visited is either experiencing problems, or is undergoing routine maintenance
Apologies for the length of this comment, but this information should be recorded somewhere:
Trepia *was* an IM client that automatically populates itself with people who happen to be located near you based upon your IP address and the city name you enter into the options section of the program. Later advancements were meant to include Wireless network functionality.
It has unfortunately disappeared off the Internet approximately March/April 2004. Their website now displays an advertisement as the domain has been parked. The Trepia network has been shutdown. Any attempts to connect using the client have failed.
With further development this application could become a very sound Instant Messaging program with a large user base. But since its apparent demise, this seems unlikely to occur.
You can view the last known version of the webpage here (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.trepia.com). This copy was made 7th February 2004.
And download the last released version from here: Trepia 2.53a (http://web.archive.org/web/20040209030545/http://www.trepia.com/download/Trepia-2.53.exe). This version was released 18th July 2003.
Timeline of events
Unknown 2002 – Trepia 1.0 Released
15 April 2003 – A blog (http://cruftbox.com/blog/archives/000631.html) that mentions that the CEO was planning Linux & Mac versions.
31 May 2003 – Trepia 2.0 Released
3 June 2003 – (http://slashdot.org/articles/03/06/03/0312249.shtml) The only article by slashdot on this matter.
18 June 2003 – Reverse engineering (http://www.adammil.net/blog/view.php?id=29) the Trepia protocol whilst it was still active
18 July 2003 – Trepia 2.53a released. Final version released by Trepia.
26 August 2003 – (http://www.detnews.com/2003/technology/0308/26/etech25-251066.htm) Includes some quotes from the software creator.
22 October 2003 – News post on Telerama.com (http://www.telerama.com/news/PR102203.php3) regarding the collaboration between them and Trepia.
19 March 2004 – A blog (http://samablog.robsama.com/index.php?p=1344) where the recommend Trepia, this would mean the website & network are still active at this point.
March/April 2004 – Trepia disappears without any notification to be found on the web now…
21 May 2004 – Another blog (https://interrelativity.com/2004/05/whither-trepia) with somebody wondering what has happened to Trepia.
22 June 2004 – Yet another blog (http://slackerbit.ch/archives/2003/06/04/so_much_for_trepia.html) where the network has apparently been non-functional for a couple months.
2005 – The Gaim source code (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) still includes obsolete code to connect to the Trepia network.
27 October 2005 – Domain registration informat has been altered to remove all details regarding Trepia.
Contact & Domain Registration Information
The contact information from the About section of the Trepia webpage matches the address listed in the Whois lookup below queried 14/02/2005 with the exception of the email address contact@trepia.com which has not yet bounced from an email I sent to it:
Organization:
Trepia, Inc.
Trepia Incorporated
309 Stonebridge Dr.
Fremont, CA 94536
US
Phone: 650-000-0000
Email: *domain*@*jawed*.*com*
Registrar Name….: Register.com
Registrar Whois…: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com
Domain Name: TREPIA.COM
Created on…………..: Thu, Aug 16, 2001
Expires on…………..: Tue, Aug 16, 2005
Record last updated on..: Fri, Aug 27, 2004
Administrative Contact:
Trepia, Inc.
Trepia Incorporated
309 Stonebridge Dr.
Fremont, CA 94536
US
Phone: 650-000-0000
Email: *domain*@*jawed*.*com*
Technical Contact:
Trepia, Inc.
Trepia Incorporated
309 Stonebridge Dr.
Fremont, CA 94536
US
Phone: 650-000-0000
Email: *domain*@*jawed*.*com*
Zone Contact:
Trepia, Inc.
Trepia Incorporated
309 Stonebridge Dr.
Fremont, CA 94536
US
Phone: 650-000-0000
Email: *domain*@*jawed*.*com*
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.RACKSHACK.NET 207.218.223.132
NS2.RACKSHACK.NET 207.218.223.162
A whois lookup performed 30/10/2005 shows different contact details.
Registrant:
Scott Meyers
P.O. Box 46576
Las Vegas, NV 89114
US
Email: *******@freestuffcentral.com
Registrar Name….: REGISTER.COM, INC.
Registrar Whois…: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com
Domain Name: trepia.com
Created on…………..: Thu, Aug 16, 2001
Expires on…………..: Wed, Aug 16, 2006
Record last updated on..: Thu, Oct 27, 2005
Administrative Contact:
Scott Meyers
P.O. Box 46576
Las Vegas, NV 89114
US
Phone: 1-309-4187082
Email: *******@freestuffcentral.com
Technical Contact:
Registercom
Domain Registrar
575 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10018
US
Phone: 1-902-7492701
Email: ***************@register.com
DNS Servers:
ns1.sedoparking.com
ns2.sedoparking.com
In closing, it appears Trepia is gone & not many people even noticed.
Ben:
Thanks for the detailed recap and update on Trepia! I’m still very interested to learn more about why Trepia failed, especially in view of the recent entry of Meetro into what I believe is the same space (no pun intended). I posted a blog entry about Meetro, but with some recent press I’ve read about them, I may update that post as well.
Hi,
I mailed the guy behind Trepia (Jawed Karim) a while after it fell off the net. Thanks to gmail I’ve just dug the mail out. I asked him what happened and he replied “Trepia did not attract sufficient numbers of users to be viable.”. So there you have it.
Cheers,
Al.