Wirefly is a cell phone plans and smartphone comparison website. Before being relaunched in May 2014, Wirefly was an online retailer of wireless services and devices operated by parent company Simplexity. Wirefly was headquartered in

Reston, Virginia Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia and a principal city of the Washington metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Reston's population was 63,226. Founded in 1964, Reston was influenced by the Garden City movem ...

and maintained technology and operations centers in

Largo, Maryland Largo, located within greater Upper Marlboro, Maryland, is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 11,605 at the 2020 census. Largo is located just east of the C ...

. Wirefly also operated a

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel, which provides video reviews and comparisons of hot products.

History

Simplexity assumed control of Wirefly.com in November 2007, after purchasing the assets of InPhonic in 2006.

Inphonic InPhonic Inc was an American company which sold wireless services and devices online, both through its own electronic commerce sites and through private labeled websites it created and managed for online retailers. The company was headquartered in ...

had filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The filings were made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, and

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

later

delisted In corporate finance, a listing refers to the company's shares being on the list (or board) of stock that are officially traded on a stock exchange. Some stock exchanges allow shares of a foreign company to be listed and may allow dual listing, su ...

the company's

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

. Many of Inphonic's assets, including its

electronic commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

operations and its Wirefly.com website, were subsequently sold to private investors who used those assets to launch the company Simplexity in January 2008. On March 12, 2014, Wirefly closed down, and is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Wirefly was relaunched in May 2014. As of April 2014, the Simplexity assets (excluding the Wirefly.com domain name) have been approved for sale to Wal-Mart for approximately US$10 million.

Reception

Wirefly has received a number of Internet awards, including ''Forbes'' magazine's "Best of the Web" for 2004 and

Keynote Systems Keynote Systems was a U.S. based company that specialized in developing and marketing software as a service technology to measure, test, and improve from the end user perspective, the performance of websites, online content, applications, and ser ...

' "Best In Overall Customer Experience" in 2005. Wirefly's video reviews and comparisons of hot products on

have received more than 5.5 million views. This channel held a Global Rank of 6,935,491 on Alexa.com as of July 29, 2013.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Wirefly.com official websiteWirefly's YouTube channel
Consumer electronics retailers in the United States