In other words, when Huckabuck (sounds more and more like a verb, doesn't it?) says "We are proud" to be selling the site, it means "We give up."

Huckabuck.com - Web 2.0 Search Engine [eBay]

Kiko's seller says that it must have been all his links to Kiko.com, which violated eBay's terms of service. (The Kiko founder then whines about eBay being so slow to catch Kiko's violation. With diplomatic skills like that, no wonder these kids couldn't broker a better deal for their company.)

Auction pulled from eBay!?!? [Kiko founder's blog]

• In the first of our responses to calendar startup Kiko's death, reputable tech writer Paul Graham tries to convince everyone (mostly Web 2.0 investors though) to implement the "stop, drop, and roll" technique to battling that evil Google Empire. Then take out your bazookas and fire away. After all, it's for the good of all mankind. [Paul Graham's Blog]
• "The Republic," in the form of Web developer 37Signals, strikes back, effectively alienating more Web 2.0 companies but managing to drive home the "less is more" didactic while affirming that 37S's Backpack Calendar reigns supreme. At least in their universe, which by the way, is light years from Planet Google. [Signal Vs. Noise]
• Robert Scoble laments (yawn) about being forced to use Google's calendar. Quelle drag. For all of us. [Scobleizer]
• ZDNet blogger Donna Bogatin offers an original take on Kiko's failure in her "Eight Sure Ways to Get in TechCrunch's Deadpool." The list reads something like a "Building Your Web 2.0 Start-Up for Dummies" but will predictably be a Seth Godin best-seller by 2007. [ZD Net Blog]
• Salon co-founder Scott Rosenberg opts for a prophetic lyrical send-off, uttering the refrain, "Incremental change is a good thing," which is sure to be Web 2.0's swan song. [Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard]
• Finally, someone's swooped in and placed a bid for the little startup that couldn't. [eBay]

— Beth Gottfried

The site where normal people offered others a place to crash (or "couchsurf") championed a San Franciscan — no, a universal — spirit the Craigslist founders would have admired. "I saw in CS, in you," says site founder Casey, "the power to change not only they way we travel, but change the world itself."

But that power could not save CouchSurfing from a hard drive failure and poorly executed backup. Founder Casey reports, "it has become clear that certain essential pieces are not recoverable." He has decided to let the site pass away.

With each death of an honest-to-God help-the-people website, which asked for no funding and sought no liquidation event, the Valley is the less. So ask not for whom the surf rolls; it rolls for thee.

Couchsurfing [Farewell message]