Fab.com Abandons Business Model (And Its Strictly Gay Focus)

It’s not just Fab.com’s Daily Deals the company is shutting down. Less than a year after launching as a social network for gay men, the site is becoming a design hub. “The all-new fab.com will feature daily design inspirations for everyone, including daily 50% discounts on ‘wow’ products from leading manufacturers,” the company writes members in an email. “The new fab.com will no longer be just for gay men. It will be for design enthusiasts everywhere.” Sure, there will be some crossover between “design enthusiasts everywhere” and gay men, but the abrupt change in focus is as clear an indication as any that the site, which attracted about 100,000 sign-ups (though that doesn’t mean they were “active members”), failed to meet investor expectations at the helm of creator Jason Golberg. The new site says it’s launching Spring 2011.