43 Things was launched on January 1, 2005, by the Robot Co-op, a small company based in Seattle founded by prominent blogger “Erik Benson” , Maktub keyboardist Daniel Spils, and former Amazon.com and Microsoft executive Josh Petersen. Initially the website was under much scrutiny as to how it was being funded. Finally there was confirmation from Amazon.com and The Robot Co-op’s CEO that internet bookseller and web giant Amazon.com was the sole investor in The Robot Co-op.
Amazon.com declined to comment on their investment, but Mieszkowski speculated that they planned to use the site to further customize their individual marketing and site preferences for their users. Mieszkowski implied that Amazon was being somewhat underhanded in disguising their use of a pseudo-independent site, as many users were entering data about their planned purchases, without realizing that they are giving this information to a potential marketing machine, rather than a social website.
Mieszkowski never announced who the anonymous tipster was or speculated about their motivations (or intentions) in leaking this announcement to the press ahead of The Robot Co-op or Amazon.com’s publicity schedule.
Prominent blogger Jason Kottke weighed in on the “43 Things Amazon Conspiracy” by asserting that the “history of the site from inception to release was chronicled on a public blog, that the employees of the Robot Co-op all keep blogs, and that all significant information on 43 Things is available via the internet, if not on the site itself or in the interview with Benson.”
The three day period of attention from the media was asserted to have led to a 35% increase in users of 43 Things. Now the website hosts more than 1 million users.
