In case you haven’t heard, Twitter has acquired values of n, the web startup responsible for productivity tools Stikkit and I Want Sandy. These are two great apps, and upon reading, you might characterize this as a great move by Twitter to diversify their offerings. Except it’s not.
On December 8, 2008, both Stikkit and I Want Sandy will be shut down, leaving a gaping void to fill in many GTD systems. In the case of I Want Sandy, users will suddenly find themselves without their scheduling, reminder and to-do list service in less than two weeks’ time. It seems that Twitter bought values of n not to explore other avenues in the web space, but instead to bring on values of n founder Rael Dornfest as an employee. Sadly, two more web apps will now bite the dust.
So, why would Twitter buy the company and IP’s? Why not allow Rael to sell the services to another company, one that might keep them online? Or better yet – why wouldn’t Twitter just keep these apps online, themselves? These are the questions many are asking at I Want Sandy’s customer support board, where the few congratulatory posts for Rael are drowning under a tidal wave of angry posts from jaded ‘Sandy’ loyalists.
Many of the frustrated posters make very valid points; for instance, how can users continue to trust that their data is safe in the cloud? If someone had gone on a two week vacation starting this past Monday, they would return on December 8 to find that all of their ‘Sandy’ data is gone forever. The two weeks’ notice given by Rael is hardly sufficient – users need a lot more time than that to backup their data and replace ‘Sandy’ in their scheduling systems. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like much, if anything, is going to change about this decision.
Do I blame Rael? Partially. I feel that he could have done more to fight for his users. I feel that, if he were as passionate about his projects as he says, he would have found a way to keep them online – even if that meant running them on the side. If Twitter wanted him badly enough as an employee, they were going to hire him whether they got his web apps or not. Now Rael is viewed negatively by many in the I Want Sandy user base, users who might happen to use…
Twitter. This is where I place most of the blame for this debacle. They should have known better. This company has a historic lack of reliability and this move does nothing but reinforce that. This time, it wasn’t Twitter’s uptime people were relying on – it was their ability to do the right thing. To generate some goodwill, for once, instead of having to dodge bullets from users. I sent a few messages to Evan Williams (Twitter CEO) to no avail, but I’m sure he has his eye on the situation. Hopefully he realizes that Twitter is now the center of a lot of negativity, a move that could have been easily avoided.
The bottom line is this – Twitter, you messed up. You gobbled up another company and left its users out in the cold. Luckily for you, this can be fixed. You have the remedy. There’s still time to do the right thing.
Please do it.
