Nick Douglas described MingleNow, ad network BlueLithium's answer to MySpace, as "Yelp meets Cheers." A more accurate description, I suspect, was "excuse for a bunch of San Jose nerds to fly around the world for parties." The expense-account game is over. Yahoo, which acquired BlueLithium for its ad technology, not its wannabe social network, is shutting MingleNow on January 7, and suggesting users go to the Yahoo-owned Flickr or Upcoming instead. Which, come to think of it, is what BlueLithium's investors probably wish its founders had done in the first place.

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