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Acquired & Closed != Failed Twitter just had too much momentum. Pownce got press, but nothing that came close to competing with Twitter. Whether good or bad,
by qhoxie 18y ago
Acquired & Closed != Failed
Twitter just had too much momentum. Pownce got press, but nothing that came close to competing with Twitter. Whether good or bad, people cannot and could not stop talking about Twitter.
- noodle 18y agothis. was going to edit my comment to include this, but you beat me to it :)
- Brushfire 18y ago+1. This is not a failure. Granted, I dont know what their total investment was, and whether they got any $$ from Six Apart to cover that investment, but personally for those two this will probably end up more in the success columns. Tried something awesome against entrenched competitors. Made progress, and accomplished a lot. It didnt work out, but they got some sort of payout and immediate jobs! For the founders this is a lukewarm win, but still a win, I would think.
- AndrewWarner 18y agoFor an entrepreneur, building something this visible is a success. It'll build their reputation.
- AndrewWarner 18y agoBut for the company, this is an absolute failure. The site is shutting down. The money invested in this business is not getting repaid. The vision wasn't close to realized.
- jonursenbach 18y agoIf they were bought by some company other than SixApart, do you think that they would have shut them down as well?
- AndrewWarner 18y agoIf there was a buyer who was willing to keep this company alive, I believe Pownse would have sold to them.
- volida 18y agoYou see this is what a lot of people get wrong. You think Pownce or X didn't grow because of Twitter or Y? This is a very wrong assumption assuming the world has 1600 million internet users.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- nir 18y ago>Acquired & Closed != Failed If that's so, what does == Failed? I can see how this move might make sense for Pownce's people, but the product itself certainly failed - how else can you define a situation where you're forced to shut down your service?
- qhoxie 18y agoFailure is obviously very subjective, but you spin it very poorly. the product itself certainly failed - how else can you define a situation where you're forced to shut down your service They were not forced, they entered into an agreement because it was favorable to them.
- eventhough 18y agoIf Pownce was doing well, they wouldn't have shut it down.
- qhoxie 18y agoOnce again, not doing well does not make it a failure.
- trapper 18y agogoogle define:fail disagrees with you. --------- be unsuccessful disappoint fall short in what is expected Failure (or flop) in general refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective
- iloveyouocean 18y agoGuys, this doesn't have to be a binary decision. There are degrees of failure and success.
- trapper 18y agoGoal: beat twitter. Outcome: fail. You can change the goal post-outcome, but it doesn't change what really happened.
- callmeed 18y agoI disagree. Pownce the app did fail. I'm not seeing anyone online calling this an "acquisition". Even on the Pownce blog, Leah says "We will be closing the service and Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart". Yes, maybe they got a small chunk for the IP, and maybe they will start something else down the road ... but Pownce failed and they have to work for someone else now.