All the gas is gone ...

... from LibNet AirAmerica. Here's from Tom Taylor:

Air America’s March 25 auction of equipment and other assets grossed about $170,000.

The intellectual property went for $20,000 and the email list for $46,000. There were probably bargains in the large quantities of studio and office equipment auctioned off by David R. Maltz & Company. Sony and Shure lavalier mics went for $75 apiece. Several Moseley STLs sold for $1,400 each. Some computers went for 50-75 bucks.

But many pieces of office furniture were marked down as “no bids”, and in the end, the physical contents of Air America at 641 6th Avenue in Manhattan are now scattered among a couple of dozen buyers who don’t care what it once represented. Air America, which went on the air in the Spring of 2004, is in Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation overseen by Gregory Messer.

One of its fundamental problems was that it overspent in the startup phase, and that’s evident in the list of items up for auction. Air America’s believers can at least say that the progressive talk venture lasted years longer than its detractors predicted. But ultimately the critics were right – it didn’t survive.

We’re still waiting for the books and/or magazine articles about the onetime lightning rod. Several staffers were reported to have been making regular notes and at least thinking about a book. You can certainly imagine a juicy Vanity Fair story about the failed lib-talk network.