Here’s a me-too service that won’t last long. Yappd, a Twitter clone, launched today. In their email to us they describe themselves as “Twitter with picture messaging,” and that pretty much sums it up. It is a service that allows you to quickly tell the world what you are up to. You can add content via their website, email or sms.
So while we debate whether Kevin Rose’s Pownce, another recent entrant to this space, is different enough from Twitter to become successful, yet another hopeful young gun enters the space with little to differentiate itself except the addition of a photo to your status messages.
Unless Yappd has a brilliant marketing strategy up their sleeve, I don’t expect them to get much traction. I do like the photo feature, though. Hopefully Twitter will add it soon.
My Yappd account is here. Don’t even think about adding me.
I’ve long wondered why you sometimes start an article with something like “Here’s a me-too service that won’t last long.” Either you don’t see that many cool, innovative companies (which I think is probably at least partly true), or you’re just in a bad mood looking to kick something. And with “Don’t even think about adding me,” I bet the second reason is really much larger. I think you could be a little more professional.
@noah,
if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
I think it’s a little rough on them too. I don’t really think you’re bound by the “if you can’t say anything nice rule”, but if the service is so inconsequential it might just be better to not write it up.
Your prerogative of course, just not my cup of tea. Probably because I’ve been in their shoes more often than I’ve been in Twitter’s shoes.
All it takes is adding a “I think” between the “that” and “won’t”, then the discussion would center around what other people think, instead of whether Mike was in a good or a bad mood
IMO, in order to succeed, Yappd would need to focus on different demographics. People aren’t going to trade the networking effect obtained by Twitter for one feature that, as Mike says, could be easily added to Twitter anyway. One way to do this? Partner with sites that already have an active community but no tool of this sorts. But dropping it in the pound to see if it ripples probably won’t get them far (I think).
Give the guys a break. They are only online for 12 hours. Kick your own ass and wonder why there is no soft pillow reached out to sit on
Why would you want to clone something that has no revenue…great that you could potentially have a ton of users, but for each user you get the bigger loss you’ll have.
I’m curious to know what the big SMS wholesalers charge per message…using that you could modeling losses. Just my 2 cents.
Great point Noah, we should all always agree with Michael and he can just turn off comments altogether.
@RBA
totally agree on your remark about partnering with other sites. I see too many islands in the social networking business. Perhaps it is because it’s easy to start a network nowadays and getting feedback from the ones who are fed up with the Twitters and Facebooks. But quality is depending on differentiation and not on “to be part of the fruitcake”.
Michael,
Feel better.
I do not like so much twitter. It does not have search capabilities. When I consult to the help desk they send me to a site is no longer available from the guys of findmap; or please play with the url until you find someone.
Please tell me I am wrong. Otherwise I do not find much use of this tool.
Mario Ruiz
http://www.oursheet.com
I thought this post was quite funny (even if it wasn’t intended to be)… keep on writin’ Arrington!
I added Mike to my friends list - because I can.
He also doesn’t like to be reminded:
techcrunch doesn’t like to be reminded.
friend me
http://yappd.com/me/centernetworks
If you’re the best and have passion, there is always room for you
Maybe their just at v0.09 and have something big they will introduce?
Famous quotes
Novell in the day…No thanks, we already own the market!
Yahoo in the day…Should we be concerned with Google?
Dac-Easy…Quickbooks? What’s that?
This would be a super way to build a chronicle of a trip for the folks back home (e.g. a vacation or a missions trip). In fact, when my son went on a recent trip, I searched everywhere in Twitter trying to find the “Add photo to your tweet here” feature, which of course was nowhere to be found. Would be great to see Twitter add it ASAP.
I don’t have a Yappd account, so don’t even think about adding me period!
I think the kids will dig it.
BTW I am WizziNL on Yappd, everyone can add me, imagejunkie as I am I’m little fed up with Twitter anyhow
Are they at the DemoPit?
@1, its Mike’s blog and he can say what he wants, although I guess he probably feels it’s become public property now
Noah wrote: I’ve long wondered why you sometimes start an article with something like “Here’s a me-too service that won’t last long.”
I have never wondered about that. I just concluded that he wrote it that way because THAT IS WHAT HE THINKS. I didn’t need to study rocket science, or brain surgery or even psychology. It’s just obvious. Michael shares his thinking and opinions. The end.
I have sometimes (but not often) wondered why people come here and read Michael’s thinking and opinion and then complain about it. To me, that’s as wacky as walking into a bar and complaining that they serve alcohol.
P.S. to Allen – I tried to add you as a friend on Facebook. Maybe next week.
P.P.S. I know Dave Winer was playing around with automatic updates to Twitter when pics are uploaded to Flickr:
http://www.scripting.com/stori.....tures.html
Good news , bad news …
1, You guys are on techcrunch
2, They say you suck
#19 robert - i am allen b on facebook for some reason - but you can also use my email
allen izatthecool centernetworks.com
Wait… i thought twitter was Radar.net withOUT the pictures?
the more competitors,the better. i’m sure we will start seeing new features on both services soon.
Hmm, or you could try Tweetr http://www.tweet-r.com which allows you to upload photos from your webcam via Twitter….
One of these days….the number of twitter clones will exceed the number of twitter users itself. Web 2.0 companies are competing within themselves instead of finding a niche segment and being innovative.
Too good for us? Well, I don’t want you, or *Tom* for that matter, as my friends. =P
tthis is ridiculous. i dont even know how to pronounce the name. what will get in a few years when there will be less domain names? crappr? waibbysz ?
Not too bad for a 2 person startup … but too bad they are down right now..
so not a twitter at all, only you can sign up some mobile carriers while Twitter lets me use it using my phone even though I am in Maldives..Twitter may look small today with jaiku and pownce but it’s still rocks when it comes to phone features.
A bit late. Try Tweet-r.com.
John Ballingers famous Adobe Air app. Already has images AND now file sending via Twitter. Pretty cool stuff.
#25 -
“One of these days….the number of twitter clones will exceed the number of twitter users itself.”
I wish I had written that.
I tempted to quip something about ‘dont make friends with a crocadile’ bla, but actually I think the balance is one step the wrong direction on this occasion. Its tough being a startup, really tough. Sure its proper to point out if they lack differeciating (and frankly if they havent realised it already, Mike’s doing them a favour!) but a little less on the negativity and sarcasm would be refreshing. Perhaps thats become Mike’s trademark, but I’d prefer the critique without the slight scent of playground bullying.
@ChandraB - During our time running our tech demonstrator (shortly to be replace with our full site) we’ve paid anything from 2.5p to 5p (circa 5c to 10c at these crazy exchange rates) for bulk delivery. Its possible to go slightly lower, again depending on destination (and reliability). You can go direct to the carriers but you need to be shifting massive traffic and I mean massive.
@Mario - I dont think the hype surrounding Twitter is justified; its a simple concept, technically badly implimented (although at NMK Calacanis shot me down saying I am just jealous of their userbase…yea right, whatever) and my admittedly bitchy-sounding take on it is that its the valley looking after and hyping their own; for what it is and what it does it simply does not deserve the level of attention its had. Despite their lack of revenue model and flakey platform they got funded though - so congratulations to them.
@myself - Damn my grammer is bad. I think I’m developing dyslexia. Am I extremely dumb or you cant edit posts?
I wish I had written that too ;-P Damn
I think all the clones including Twitter have to kick some own ass. DIFFERentiation! Think about an innovative revenuemodel and then start something which allows and forces users to become active and important life leaders. Get real, Twitter is not more then a global chatbox where you ar not directly allowed to connect to strangers.
Let’s start form the names. twitter, pownce and yappd
Yappd is the best by far! They have learn from the other two and will have a bright future I think. Don’t put them in second league too soon. Let them prove what they can. If they manage to do so they will be here to stay. If not another social network will bite the dust - what’s new?
One of these days, the articles on Tech Crunch will outnumber the comments.
What goes around comes around.
How does a company handle being trashed by TechCrunch? Its still a positive experience in some sense b/c it generates lots of traffic - but does TechCrunch set the tone for whether a company is worthwhile?
About 99.9999% of the countless Web 2.0 (has that term jumped the shark yet?!) companies out there seem to be created on the basis of one thing: “Hey, this might be cool. Let’s do it.”
The hope, of course, is that enough buzz will be generated around the thing to generate a lot of users. “If you build it, they will come.” Maybe. Maybe not. But if they do, maybe you can sell out to Google or Yahoo! and cash in. Maybe not.
What’s typically not being asked, though, is: What would compel someone who has never heard of this thing to change their behavior and start using it? The key word in that sentence: “compel.”
(Oh, and this: How does this thing generate revenue?)
Welcome to Bubble 2.0
I’ve actually gone through and reviewed the service, I’ll just say that I was pretty disappointed. You can check out my review here http://www.jeffro2pt0.com/yapp.....er-killer/
Sounds like a classic example of confusing an idea for a new feature vs. a new product.
If the marginal benefit to a user does not outweigh switching costs, and the marginal cost of the dominant player adding your feature is negligible, I’d probably go back to the drawing board.
Mobypicture.com added some neat functionalities we think you should take a look at.
We integrated some parts of Twitter, Flickr and are currently adding MySpace and Facebook support.
What’s in it for our users?
You can now distribute photo postings to different accounts (Twitter, Flickr and in the future many other platforms) from one place. Send your posting to your Mobylog and it will be automatically distributed to the platforms you’ve setup!
Sure, web 2.0 and the clones are there….but surely all web sites are clones of some sort? Whether taking one idea from a site and adapting the approach or putting together aspects from three, four or five sites and repackaging them. People clone / take aspects as they either: a) like the site and want to personalise to their own market or b) see potential to ‘run off the back and develop’
Guys can’t have some fun making stuff anymore?