[eth]

Seriously? 30 million users at FormSpring's peak seems to be executed relatively well. It was no Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, but 30 million users is a damn good failure as far as I'm concerned.

Now if you want to talk about social plays that capitalize on trends with without adding any real value that are not executed especially well, then we can talk about Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning"s travesty that is Airtime.

[bherms]

30 million users generating no revenue.

edit: and retention rates were abysmal. 30 million people signed up is a vanity metric. actual "users" was a very, very small fraction of that

[chaz]

I have a hard time criticizing someone for taking a ride on something that was grew from 0 to 30 million uniques in 6 months, just to see where it goes. You're right it wasn't super sticky and failed to drive long term utility for users, but I think most of us here would want to take a swing at that kind of growth and turn it into something that had long term value.

[eth]

Thank you for summarizing what I was really trying to say here, chaz. Even half of YC's consumer focused tech companies should be so lucky.

The team, the direction they took the product, and the VCs/funding aside, Ade's clearly massive effort is inspiring and should be congratulated rather than completely drown out with sarcasm.

[iampims]

Correction: generating revenue. Just not enough to cover the costs.