The once-popular app Kik ($PRIVATE:KIK) is being put down tomorrow, like a racehorse with a broken leg. Kik users (who, by most estimates, are largely teenagers looking for a safe place to text) will now have to find a new place to send photos and videos of their body parts to each other. In our previous article on Kik (which was very popular, thank you everyone!) we posted job listings data, showing that Kik stopped posting job listings on September 29. Here is what's left as Kik shutters the service.

This is the first note of a dying app. The chart above reads like a flatline for a company on life support (the plug will be pulled officially sometime tomorrow, October 19). Miraculously though, the 'Talking About' count on Facebook has shot up 364%, which no, is not a typo. It seems people are gathering together to discuss the community they once shared, a funeral of sorts, and the eulogy is on Facebook.

There's also some life in the Twitter world, where Kik added 3,000 new followers in the last few weeks. The announcement of the app's death likely contributed to the influx of people looking for explanations and answers. First, it's denial, then anger, then bargaining, you know the rest. Soon, Kik fans will have to accept their fates: they have to install a new app and use its dumb interface and add all their friends all over again. What a bummer.

Most shockingly of all, there are still almost 200 people who claim to work at Kik on their LinkedIn profiles. Instead of, you know, finding a new job.

RIP Kik. We hardly knew you. Or used you, since we aren't twelve.

About the Data: 

Thinknum tracks companies using information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales. 

Further Reading: 

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