Update: Indymac now No. 265 on Implode-O-Meter site

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The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter website has been all over the Indymac story today, with numerous updates about the company’s new plan to exit the mortgage lending business and slash 53% of its jobs. Here’s a headline you won’t see in tomorrow’s papers: under the Implode-O-Meter’s criteria, Indymac has now officially imploded. It is now No. 265 on the blog’s list of imploding mortgage companies, which you can view here alphabetically. Other notables on the list:

1. Merit Financial (May 6, 2006)
35. New Century Financial (March 8, 2007)
190. Option One/H&R Block (December 4, 2007)
213. Countrywide Financial (Jan. 11, 2008)

Update: I stand corrected. You will see coverage of the Implode-O-Meter in tomorrow’s papers, if you read The New York Times. The Times tonight files a spot profile of the website, the ultimate hat tip from old media to new. Highlights: ‘With its tongue-in-cheek tone and running lists of the ‘imploded’ and the merely ‘ailing,’ the Implode-O-Meter has become a sort of Gawker of the subprime world. At a recent Mortgage Bankers Association conference, a speaker addressed what has become a hot topic among lenders: how to keep your company’s name off the site.’

More: ‘The Implode-O-Meter is the brainchild of Aaron Krowne, a former researcher at Emory University in Atlanta. A computer scientist and mathematician, Mr. Krowne, 28, started the site in 2007, believing that the troubles in the housing market, and by extension the mortgage industry, would worsen. He was right — and the Implode-O-Meter took off.’

Well-deserved recognition. Good on you, Aaron.
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