Ask HN: Why did Prismatic fail to gain traction?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10722252

by cryodesign • 11 years ago

2 4 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

If you haven't seen the original post yet, here it is http://blog.getprismatic.com/next-chapter/

Prismatic is basically shutting down its news apps.

I remember signing up for it a few years ago, used it a couple of times but then never went back to it and stuck with twitter as my news feed.

Why do you think Prismatic failed to gain traction?

DrScump• 11 years ago

Did you mean to submit this as an "Ask HN" ?

Originally submitted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10721178

cryodesign2• 11 years ago

Yes I did, I changed the title to reflect that. Thanks for pointing it out.

plinkplonk• 11 years ago

I think it did gain some traction and had a lot of users. It was a very nice app imo, and quite useful, in spite of occasional weirdness. I think the problem was a lack of business model and/or 'hockey stick growth' that would bring in money sufficient to break even/break out.

They did write some very useful open source Clojure code which will live on. I am very surprised one of the BigCos (Google, Twitter) didn't acquihire them - a very talented team.

cryodesign2• 11 years ago

Reading about the team was what attracted me to the app a few years ago, but the app just didn't stick with me (force of habit of using twitter as a news feed). I'm sure it got better over the years and I should have tried it again.

And Microsoft did try to acquire them earlier this year: http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/01/prismatic-2/

Ask HN: Why did Prismatic fail to gain traction?

Related Stories