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The company has sent an email to all existing Mash members, informing them that the service will be shut down on 29 September and that all profiles will be deleted.

The little-known site has failed to generate anything like the buzz associated with rivals Facebook and MySpace. Although, ironically, the Mash beta homepage still brashly states: "The odds are good that one of your friends is in here already. Hit them up for an invite!"

Mash's unique selling point was that friends could create and edit your profile on your behalf. That clearly failed to divert enough people from market-leader Facebook, which earlier this week claimed that it had surpassed the 100 million user mark.

Facebook is also to be the subject of a new movie written by The West Wing creator, Aaron Sorkin.

Yahoo clearly didn't think such eventualities through: Mash is already something of a TV hit.