Twitter Alternative Pebble, Previously Known As T2, Is Shutting Down (zdnet.com) 28
Pebble, the first of the would-be Twitter replacements to emerge after Elon Musk bought Twitter, is shutting down. The social media platform -- previously known as T2 to indicate a desire to build a Twitter clone -- was founded by former Twitter employees Sarah Oh and Gabor Cselle. Steven Vaughan-Nichols writes via ZDNet: Pebble was an early-stage, Twitter-like social network. Its goal was to become the "place to have the authentic conversations we've always wanted to have." Its founders, who were largely Twitter alumni, designed Pebble to look and feel like pre-Musk Twitter, with a 280-character limit and direct messaging. I rather liked it, but it appears I was in the minority. Pebble was always a bit rough around the edges, and it never made it past about 20,000 users.
In what was still a surprising announcement, Pebble revealed its plans to shut down operations on November 1, 2023. In a letter to users, Pebble said: "The painful truth, however, is that we were not growing quickly enough for investors to believe that we will break out. Combine that with a crowded space of alternatives -- and the uphill climb is even steeper. In order to continue to build out a complete Pebble, we would have needed more investment, and more time." That was not to be -- and Pebble's backers ran out of money and time.
A spokesperson for the platform stated: "While we are immensely proud of what we achieved with our dedicated team and an incredible community, the reality is that our growth rate was not meeting the expectations set by our investors." With the digital landscape burgeoning with alternative platforms, Pebble was competing in an increasingly crowded marketplace. As the platform prepares for its final curtain call, the team behind Pebble is shifting its focus to showing gratitude to its supportive community. They are exploring potential avenues to ensure that the connections formed on Pebble can continue in another guise. Further details are expected to be shared soon.
In what was still a surprising announcement, Pebble revealed its plans to shut down operations on November 1, 2023. In a letter to users, Pebble said: "The painful truth, however, is that we were not growing quickly enough for investors to believe that we will break out. Combine that with a crowded space of alternatives -- and the uphill climb is even steeper. In order to continue to build out a complete Pebble, we would have needed more investment, and more time." That was not to be -- and Pebble's backers ran out of money and time.
A spokesperson for the platform stated: "While we are immensely proud of what we achieved with our dedicated team and an incredible community, the reality is that our growth rate was not meeting the expectations set by our investors." With the digital landscape burgeoning with alternative platforms, Pebble was competing in an increasingly crowded marketplace. As the platform prepares for its final curtain call, the team behind Pebble is shifting its focus to showing gratitude to its supportive community. They are exploring potential avenues to ensure that the connections formed on Pebble can continue in another guise. Further details are expected to be shared soon.
It's an X-Pebble (Score:1)
It's pretty bad when the only thing notable about them is that they're shutting down. I had literally never heard of them before this.
Re: (Score:3)
IIRC Mastodon got 25x their number of Twitter expats.
I wonder what "authentic experience" meant?
Egg-shell censorship, suspensions, and bans?
Back in the failwhale days nobody even cared what you wrote.
Re: (Score:2)
Back in the failwhale days nobody even cared what you wrote.
And once again nobody cares what you've written on Twitter. Maybe Musk achieved something after all.
Re: (Score:2)
Now where am I going to go to get my daily dose of corporate marketing?
Re: (Score:2)
I never heard of it either. My mind went to the first smart watch I owned.
As Kosh once said... (Score:4, Funny)
The avalanche has started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
Given there are already alternatives... (Score:3)
Mastodon, BlueSky, etc. have been around for years. If people want to move away from Twitter to something else similar, there are already established platforms in place - so I'm not sure what gaping hole a brand-new launch like Pebble was supposed to fill.
And that's not even considering the Zuckerberg-shaped elephant in the (chat) room...
Re: (Score:2)
Worth saying.... a coder isn't what's needed to make a successful social media site right now anyway. In order it's connections and ability to get people to join and to get a positive view in the public eye. Money helps with that, timing, connections etc.. Now yeah this woman probably doesn't have that either, but getting a social media site running in 2023, working code is the easiest thing to get, be it using one of the dozens of working open source frameworks, to hiring a coder.
Lets face it if someon
Ohhh, an X alternative (Score:2, Funny)
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what a "Twitter alternative" is. It turns out, this website was an X alternative. Now it's much more clear. I still am not sure what twitter is.
Re: (Score:1)
Thanks, Elon!
The problem, of course, is incompetence (Score:5, Insightful)
If you need "backers", and not just your piggy bank, to run a website for less than 20,000 users, you're doing it wrong. I could do that on a home internet connection.
Re: (Score:2)
So do it. Get it started today. The rest of us will enjoy watching you flail around and fail.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course he will likely fail if he did, like any such attempt regardless of staff numbers.
But the point he made is valid. You can run a 20k people website without a huge staff.
You definitely do not need a million $ for such today.
Re: (Score:2)
Fosstodon, just one Mastodon instance seems to have reached around 60K users.
They say their costs are $2K/month and they have two founders who I imagine are the people who manage it, plus moderators.
And I think they're at 60K only because they decided to limit signups.
Free social media isn't sustainable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Users don't like ads so they ignore or remove them from their experience so the advertisers did the obvious: they moved their marketing to the user base. Swarms of marketing accounts created and placed behind sponsored influencers. But this business model doesn't actually involve paying the platform for ad-space.
A platform warps itself to the needs of the customers over time and if those customers are advertisers then they will warp the platform in a way that's inhospitable to organic human use. And if the people monetizing your platform are advertisers and they are creating all the content then you just have a spam machine where marketers yell ads at other marketers who are yelling their ads. Marketing is inherently unsustainable because people just don't like 'em. Trying to get customers to like you by interrupting their favorite TV shows and filling their social media feeds with spam is obviously not a way get the customer on your side.
Re:Free social media isn't sustainable. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
You can do "free" social media if it's done in a decentralized way like BitTorrent where people "seed" the network.
"Free social" media (Score:3)
Ad-supported social media isn't sustainable.
Change that for corporate/commercial social media.
As long as there are investors, they will demand ROI!!!! and will always turn everything into shit in the name of profit.
Be it Ads (i.e.: pushing content you never asked for), core features suddenly becoming paying (pay to boost / pay to be seen by your own followers) or all of the above.
(even TFA's Pebble's creators complaining more about investors unhappy with the slow growth than about users leaving the platform has elements of that)
that's one of the core
pebble value (Score:2)
Pebble value drops like a rock. Founders must have been stoned to think it would work.