For a few months I had the ability for users to sign up for a paid account, but I never pushed it. After that, I just disabled the feature altogether.
The most advertising I did do was a 125x125 ad on a website used by web developers (DavidWalsh.name) for one month. I didn't get a single user through that ad though.
The biggest lesson learned is that an app like this really needs someone who is good at marketing. I'm just a programmer, but if I had found a marketer and pursued the development of the app, I'm pretty sure it could have been successful.
Another take away is to research competitors. I never looked them up since I actually built this mostly for myself at first, and just kept adding new features as it got bigger. It turned out the market was very crowded (This page has a list of 17 competitors: http://thomashunter.name/blog/shutting-down-and-open-sourcin...).
Also, "piss or get off the pot". I spent a lot of time developing this but I didn't devote enough of my time to it for it to be successful.