Music boardan app for music discovery and recommendations, has struggled, according to the users. In recent months, users have said the app experienced vacation, the site went offlineand the Android app disappeared from Play Store.
This was about its dedicated, if small, user base. (The app has been downloaded about 462,000 times to date, according to the market intelligence provider Appfigures.) Active Redditusers recommend alternatives and offer each other support as they await any update.
While it’s not surprising to see an app shut down, when there’s still an active user base, apps usually provide some kind of communication from their operators. But Musicboard users say they haven’t heard anything, leaving them to turn to the press for help in getting in touch with someone, if only to let them extract their data.
Some users organized an unofficial ‘Help Save Musicboard’ initiative to draw more attention to the issue. The group is run by the Musicboard user known as Lavarina and is run by volunteers.
TechCrunch reached out to Musicboard to help these users get some answers and received a brief statement. However, the statement did not elaborate on the longer-term issues and dismissed the outage as a “temporary shutdown”.
The statement, shared by the Musicboard team’s email address and signed simply as “Musicboard”, said:
The application is not closed. The servers had a temporary downtime which has now been quickly fixed. And we are working together with the Google Play team to bring the app back there. The app wouldn’t close without a respectable timeline for users and official communication. The app remains live.
The following questions remained unanswered.
THE founders of Musicboard, Johannes Vermandois and Erik Heimer, have been involved in other projects as well. Their AI application, Frank AI, was to be acquired by a company called Freedom Holdings, Inc., but the potential buyer he finished the letter of intent in September 2024. Dreamsands, Inc., the company that publishes Frank AI on the App Store, also operates another app, Steering wheelAI healer.
Via email, Lavarini says that user efforts to help save the app will continue.
The Help Save Musicboard initiative “aims to support awareness and conversation about the long-term viability of indie app Musicboard and its community,” Lavarini wrote.
