[moe]

That whole story is just one big WTF to me.

It seems most things sailing in the wake of twitter simply defy all logic and common sense. There have been literally dozens of picture sharing services before twitpic. The only difference I can see is the name ("look, we're for twitter!") and that he basically integrated an url-shortener.

The entire site looks like about a week's worth of work. 700k in annual profit? Not sure if I want to laugh or cry.

[abstractbill]

The entire site looks like about a week's worth of work. 700k in annual profit? Not sure if I want to laugh or cry.

Laugh. Be happy. Learn from this that you don't have to make something people want that nobody else could make because it's so complex and you're awesome. You just have to make something people want.

[zhyder]

Does that mean the rest of us are bad at figuring out what people want, and we need to try to build the skill? Or are we just not as lucky?

[paraschopra]

It means that the only startups which get profiled/interviewed are the ones which do get get successful. Survivorship bias here.

[axod]

The other takeaway for me is that it was an insanely risky bet.

Twitter could easily have built the functionality to share pictures into twitter (Like facebook did). Heck - then they might have a reasonable revenue stream.

If Twitter had done that, twitpic would have been stomped on.

[abstractbill]

Right, but if the entire site really was about a week's worth of work (or anything like that order of magnitude) then I wouldn't say this was insanely risky, I'd say "why the hell would I not try this?" ;)

[gridspy]

Of course he was solving his own problem in the process - so worst case scenario : An educational programming experience that leads to a useful personal tool.

[wisty]

I wish I could vote twice, just occasionally.

[axod]

I'm guessing he didn't just write it then sit back and let it run. Things tend to need tweaking/maintainence/upgrading, especially if you're scaling to the numbers he has...

But I agree, why not try stuff like this... Might just work.

[emmett]

A very risky bet, with high payoff and low risk. AKA, a good bet.

Chance of Success * Reward - Cost. Just because the chance of success is low doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

[aaronblohowiak]

Very risky, yes. But it is chicken risk, not pig risk.

[Andys]

That to me is the real message from this: That twitter failed to implement and integrate this feature into their own service, and are missing out on a pretty decent revenue stream.

[FreeRadical]

But the revenue stream is advertising which they could turn on any time

[petercooper]

It's not so much what the site does but the fact that it came earlyish on and got so much traction (and recognition from most of the major Twitter clients). Being in the right place at the right time can beat execution in most areas.

[volida]

you should cry for your attitude.

[moe]

Why the negativism?

To clarify; I didn't mean to talk down the author nor the site. I was just expressing my surprise (and partly envy) about the success of such a seemingly trivial project.

My laugh/cry statement was about the fact how I (and many others) struggle in comparison. Seeing a site like this take off is a bit disconcerting. But well, you can't blame the lottery winner.

[mikeyur]

You should grow up.

[tennisman120]

you should cry that you didn't come up with that idea and have 700,000k+ sitting in your bank account.