Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Fred Wilson seconds The Guradian’s Web picks for 2008. No surprise, of course, given that two of author Bobbie Johnson’s “hits” are Wilson funded companies, via his Union Square Ventures: Etsy and Twitter.

Wilson’s A VC blog is a promo fest for his portfoilio companies.

Wilson wants his A VC readers to buy a $30 oil spot vase, a $88 retro camera and a $500, 15 inch wire Harley-Davidson, all via his Etsy storefront.

Wilson wants his A VC readers to “Get a Voiki now!,” the latest animated product of his portfolio company, Oddcast.

Wilson wants all to “follow” him at Twitter.

A VC masterfully uses his “personal” blog to showcase his own USV portfolio companies. The A VC treatment, though, is not a guranteed win for funded companies. Wesabe, for example. Wilson on the runner-up Wesabe case:

Our portfolio company Wesabe was the first company to market in the web-based personal finance sector, which has gotten quite hot lately with the launch of competitors Mint and Geezeo. Wesabe’s taken a bit of a backseat on the visibility front in light of its competitor’s launches…

Wilson nevertheless is (publicly) upbeat: “This is a very big market opportunity and we think there is room for more than one large company in this category.”

But what about the “what are you doing category?,” aka Twitter? When Jaiku went to Google, the blogosphere was ablaze wondering “Why not Twitter?”

Why did Twitter miss out on Google acqusition love? How could a U.S. brand, adored by the tech blogosphere and founded by the founder of Google acquired Blogger be passed over for Finnish Jaiku?

We will most likely never know. We do know, however, that Twitter continues to frustrate its most ardent Tweeters. Dave Winer, for example. In September, he increduously annoited Twitter, a free consumer service, “mission critical.” 

I pointed out to Winer, however: Is it really prudent, though, for any professional or business to abdicate control over “misssion critical” operations to a new, unproven, consumer facing, free Web 2.0 tool that is offered on an “as is” basis to be used “at your own risk.”

The Twitter non-performance “guarantee”:

We reserve the right to modify or terminate the Twitter.com service for any reason, without notice at any time.

Winer has since had his fill of Twitter’s non-performance,” lamenting now: “What other basic form of communication goes down for 12 hours at a time?”

Winer is so perturbed that his no-cost “mission critical” Twitter is not performing up to his non-paid expectations that he has put out specs for the Twitter clone he would like produced:

It’s fairly amazing that there isn’t a viable Twitter clone out there yet, one that does exactly what Twitter oes, and runs all its applications. I’d also like to see something much more decentralized, based on static files, available to any Twitter-like system. It doesn’t seem that far out of reach. With all the scaling troubles Twitter has had it’s surprising that there haven’t yet been any entrepreneurs willing to enter the space to compete with Twitter.

Despite Winer’s belief that there are no Twitter-worthy alternatives already on the Web, Jaiku and Pownce are indeed deemed by many to be Twitter competitors.

Pownce is a Kevin Rose co-production. Pownce is not open to the public and Rose’s Digg is being buried alive by its once greatest booster: Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch.

What about Twitter? Will it also soon be deemed a has-been by the very crowd that put it on a pedestal?

Twitter is massively used by the tech blogosphere for self-promotion, same as Digg. The Twitter team includes a geek celebrity, same as Digg. Twitter is hard-pressed to realize its crossover dreams, same as Digg.

Are Twitter’s tech glory days numbered?

ALSO: Mint CEO on Web 2.0 Nonsense AND Who Needs Wesabe: INTERVIEW and Wesabe USV: YOUR Financial Data Belongs on the Web!

AND: Digg: TechCrunch Bails on Arrington Web 2.0 Fave and Twitter and Facebook: The BIG Illusions of Friendship and Influence and Mahalo: Will Calacanis Win the Billion Dollar Startup Lottery in 2008?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, can NOT be contained! He announces his latest start-up, Pownce.

BUT is Rose’s enthusiasm really a good thing, for Digg investors? So asks “Drama 2.0″ in a comment at TechCrunch, lambasting Rose for seeming to neglect his “moral and fiduciary” duty to help create value for ALL his shareholders:

Kevin Rose is now apparently intimately involved with three startups, two of which (Digg and Revision3) have raised a fairly substantial amount of money from institutional investors (I’m sure funding is right around the corner for Pownce if it hasn’t already been raised). From Kevin’s perspective, this is great. Despite the fact that Digg has reportedly found it difficult to make money and several suitors such as News Corp. have allegedly passed on the opportunity to acquire it, Kevin has managed to leverage his Web 2.0 poster boy status to create new startups and get promotion and funding for them. Smart diversification move for him.

I must, however, question the sensibility of investors who tolerate and support such behavior. As an investor I would personally want to ensure that the founders and management team of any startup that I had invested in were 110% committed to that startup. Having key personnel split time with other startups should be something that investors frown upon, especially when a startup hasn’t yet earned a cent of profit.

The TechCrunch commenters are showing no mercy, in any Pownce regard:

Jekyl: Pretend this wasn’t founded by notable members of the valley brat pack and instead built by 4 people called ‘Dave, Colin, Imran and Claire in Boulder, CO’ and this thing wouldn’t get a look in anywhere.

A certain other ‘face of web 2.0′ twittered earlier that it only became interested when she heard who was behind it. Haha I’m sure it will get some reasonab traffic because Kevin Rose’s name is on it (doesn’t look like from the ‘about us’ page he did much other than ‘advise’) but then what?

It looks like it was cheap to build and I guess they’ll get their investment back and some pocket money, but it’s not a defenable business and has nothing on Skype or even email + twitter as a solution other than the face it looks pretty.

Pownce is yet another feature-as-a-company thing that could be built by anyone. It’s a shame, when they said they were going to do a ‘new take on IM’ I was actually quite excited.

Rose famously touts that Digg was created almost on a lark, and in no time at all:

I was sitting around thinking about how this would play out. My background in school is in computer science. I wrote a scoping document to a friend, who is a developer. The friend said it would take two or three weeks to create and cost 700 bucks, so I said, ‘Let’s go for it.’

Rose now reports that Pownce is a “side project” that he’s been “working on with some friends over weekends for the last few months.” Rose is taking pains to prove that Digg is his one and only priority:

P.S. Just so you know, my role at Digg hasn’t changed. I’m always thinking about fun tech projects when I’m not working on Digg, and Pownce is one of them.

Rose’s “role” at Digg is coming in handy, for Pownce!

Digg power user “dlprager” dugg the site Pownce itself nine hours ago; A third-party news story was not dugg, Rose’s new venture was dugg.

Digg user dlprager’s promo for the Rose start-up:

Pownce–Send Stuff to Your Friends: This is the new project from Leah Culver, Kevin Rose, Daniel Burka, and Shawn Allen. The app (built using Adobe AIR) allows you to send messages, links, files, and events to groups of friends. Check it!

By “check it,” dlprager means visit Pownce; His digg is a direct promotional link to the Pownce site, not a link to a story on Pownce, apparently NOT in the spirit of the stated digg “rules”:

Find an article, video, or podcast online and submit it to Digg.com. Your submission will immediately appear in “Upcoming Stories,” where other members can find it and, if they like it, Digg it.

Pownce, Rose’s site, has nevertheless been dugg more than 1500 times, so far.

Speaking of Adobe AIR, I asked just yesterday if a paid evangelist for Adobe could really be expected to be an independent editorial voice on RIAs in the blogosphere. See: ZDNet Responds: BUT Does Disclosure Rule?

Today’s ”Universal Desktop” post suggests not: “Pownce using AIR (and I’ve got invites),” Ryan Stewart, Adobe employee, declares in his ZDNet blog:

Pownce decided to do their desktop client in AIR because it was cross platform and they could use the web skills to port most of the website functionality to the desktop client. I think it’s a pretty good use case for AIR. You can do everything you need to from the website and you’ll never have to download the client if you don’t want to. But if you become a heavy user of Pownce, you’re going to find the desktop client much easier to use and a much better experience overall.

NO conflict of interest worry, though, ZDNet assures with its Stewart disclosure page headlined “I work for Adobe”:

One of the things I get a lot of feedback on is that everyone appreciates me being “neutral” and covering all angles of the rich internet application space. None of that is going to change. In fact, with Adobe, I’ll have even more access and also more resources so that I can do a better job of talking about how important rich internet applications are and how important these great experiences are…

I’ve also been fortunate enough to be a visible part of the space and had a lot of customers and developers seek me out. I wanted to make that a part of my day job, and at Adobe, I’ll be talking to customers a lot, flying around the world presenting at conferences, and interfacing with developers to find out what they want. Blogging will be a big part of my job and I’ll also be able to do a lot of interviews with people at Adobe in the hopes of showing off the cool stuff they’re working on and facilitating a conversation between the people at Adobe building products and the people that are using the products…

I think any big moves in the rich internet application space benefit Adobe. As the space grows, Adobe will do well, so it will be fun to cover the ever expanding realm of RIAs.

At least Stewart is honest, in confriming his loyalties!

And the big, bad incestuous Web parties on!

ALSO: Digg’s Jay Adelson: TV Sponsors Rule

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN