Pownce versus Twitter
Leah Culver is answering some questions about failure of Pownce relative to Twitter. She was lead developer. I’m frustrated by her answers, since she seems to give credit to Twitter for being highly focused and well-run, whereas anyone following the story is aware of how untrue that is. There was a lot of discussion last year about Why Can’t Twitter Scale? The lead programmer at Twitter, Blaine Cook, was either fired or quit. So how does that square with the praise Leah offers them?
Andrew: OK. All right. We talked about what you did well, what do you wish you did differently?
Leah: That’s a really good question. I really hated that the comparison to Twitter. I think, if I were to do a new start up or a different company, I would pick it in an area where there wasn’t such good competition, determined competition. I think there is definitely different levels of start ups and Twitter was definitely (laughs) a good start up, and it’s really hard to compete or be compared to.
Andrew: Why were they such good competitors? It seemed like they were down most of the time that you, guys, were up. It seemed like they weren’t doing that much on their site, it was just text. You, guys, did so much more, you are more alive. What made them such good competitors?
Leah: I think because the team is very focused, they have an excellent team.
Excerpt 2Leah: You know, I feel like it’s really unfortunate that people saw it as that kind of rivalry because we never, that was never the intent. When we launched the site and we first got like they compare us to Twitter, it was like shocking because Pownce is definitely a very different type of a site, a different type of feel, a different type of community. I think that, you know, maybe the press jumped on it as an opportunity to write about something that just, you know, that rivalry was just never there.
Possibly, Twitter deserves praise for being more flexible than Pownce? Both companies started off thinking they’d be more like a CMS, Twitter adapted the most, into something different. Or perhaps this is a story about companies die once they are acquired by other companies? If Pownce hadn’t been bought by Six Apart, it would be forced to keep evolving itself.