Here's how Fame worked: Everyone who signed up for the service joined a follower pool. Every 24 hours, for 24 hours, this pool was given to a new person. The hope was to amass millions of followers — more than Gaga, was the line — so that each new winner would be actually famous for a day. Cool, right? A gimmick, but a clever one.
The first question we had for founder Adam Ludwin when he told us about Fame was: will Twitter seriously allow this? The answer was yes. For 19 days.
So! Fame is shutting down tomorrow. It has 8501 followers. It will have had 20 winners before shutting down, and inspired exactly one imitator.
Our 15 min are up. Well, 19 days to be exact. Twitter has informed us that we are violating the spirit of their TOS.
— FAME (@fame) April 12, 2012
So on this Friday the 13th we say farewell. We may be down, but we're not out. There's nothing like a good celebrity comeback story.
— FAME (@fame) April 12, 2012