Stocktwits, one of my favorite new services built on the back of Twitter...gets a write up in the Wall Street Journal today.
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2009/02/03/tweeting-about-trading/
One thing their leader, Howard Lindzon, mentions is that they are considering putting it on a different platform...
"Mr. Lindzon and co-founder Soren Macbeth are debating whether to transfer the product off of Twitter and onto an open platform. “Our audience doesn’t care about Twitter,” Lindzon said. “They’ll go wherever we take the product.”
True (ish).
I think they have been helped in adoption by being part of the Twitter blow-up, and they will be served by continuing innovation on the twitter platform. Transferring off of twitter will be like Howard Stern going to Satellite Radio (or wherever it was he went.) He's still around, still Howard, but there is certain water cooler aspect missing now.
That said...maybe the Stocktwits folks understand that as they grow they may be impacted by an onslaught of SPAM on twitter, or other issues lurking...but part of the appeal is surely the 140 character limit, and the fact that it's integrated into my twitter stream....why make me go elsewhere? And if I can post any length post, won't it devolve into just another bulletin board? A high class one, but still.
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2009/02/03/tweeting-about-trading/trackback/