Over the course of 2010 we have profiled over 300 New England area startups, and some have gone on to have great successes while others unfortunately have not. Starting a company is no easy feat and usually means a life-altering change, and if it were easy a lot more people would be taking the plunge. You probably have heard the statistic that 9 out of every 10 startups fail, so it should be no surprise to you that a few of Boston’s startups have hit the deadpool this year.

Personally, I consider the deadpool somewhat of a triumph and a stepping stone on to your next venture. The decision to shut down a company has got be be 10 times harder than quitting your job and putting all of your money into your idea. Here is a list of the companies that have shut their doors this year, and I tip my hat to these founders and wish them the best of luck in their next venture in 2011.

Wattzy

Wattzy was best described as a Mint.com for energy use. You can track all of your utility costs, manage them, and reduce them over time. Here is an article about them on BostInno.

UserMojo

UserMojo, a Techstars and Dogpatch Labs grad, was aiming to change the way visitors of your website share feedback. In a previous BostInno article, “Think of it like a transparent slide users can open over the top of a website and make notes on. When they’re done, they simply click to submit that feedback to the site’s creator.”

YouCastr

YouCastr was a marketplace for online video. Producers could upload videos, set a viewing price and get paid per view. Here is the original BostInno piece and the shut down notice.

Riotvine

Riotvine attempted to change the event creation space by making it social. Here is the original BostInno piece and the shut down notice.

Sponty

A Twitter like social discovery engine for events. The only trace we have from Sponty on BostInno is in the Webinno 24 recap. There iPhone app appears to have been taken off the iTunes app store. There is also no contact information listed on their website.

Shortbord

Shortbord aimed to help you monetize your social media activity. This company hit Boston with a bang, generated some serious buzz, and just like that…they disappeared… Here is the original article from February.

rangle.me

Rangle.me is a personal portal for managing your online presence. Manage passwords, distribute media, aggregate contacts, all from one site. We never got around to covering them, and I still don’t understand exactly what it was supposed to do. We have reached out to their employees asking for confirmation.

Hangout Industries

Updated: The company appears to have shipped employees west and may have shut down. We are renting space from their Boston office in Downtown Crossing and there appears to be no staff here. We have multiple conflicting reports on this company’s status. We have now learned that the company is apparently seeking outside investment again.

betahouse

Betahouse aimed to be a co-working space for entrepreneurs in Cambridge. Apparently the terms of their new lease went bad and the coworking is no more. Here is an article talking about their expansion. The Betahouse community is alive and well but their space no longer exists.

Geolenz

From their website, “Geolenz implemented an enabling technology for describing GPS-tagged locations in a way that is meaningful and natural to the enclosing geographic domain community.” The only evidence BostInno has of their existence is in the WebInno 25 recap.

Who else is noteworthy that I am missing? Please feel free to let me know if their are others to add.