Community websites: The two sides of the story

This week saw the surprising news that Odeo (http://www.odeo.com), the most popular podcasting community website, is being placed on the market by it's owner and creator Evan Williams (http://www.evhead.com).

Evan Williams, the man who practically invented the blogging phenomenon as we know it via his company Pyra Labs and their product Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), started Odeo early last year after his departure from, the then Google owned, Blogger.

Evan, along with his partner Biz Stone (http://www.bizstone), created Odeo to capitalize on the podcasting wave which was building momentum in early 2006. Odeo offered easy podcasting tools to the masses, following a similar model as Blogger had done with personal publishing.

Evan has blogged about his tumultuous relationship with Odeo and the mistakes he has made over the course of the business (Evan not podcasting himself being just one) but to sell a business with so much untapped potential is surely a mistake?

Ev has been very specific on the new owner he is looking for, publically announcing that if a suitable home cannot be found for Odeo Ev & team will keep the website in house.

So if you're a web entrepreneur with a skilled development team and a few hundred thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket, perhaps you should drop Ev a line to see if you qualify!

Before you fire off that email however, look at this surprising quote from Ev's sale announcement:
“The Adsense revenue just about covers the hosting costs of the site each month"

This would surely imply that one of the most successful podcasting sites available is only just profitable despite having a raft of loyal users and a now stable product offering.

Twitter

On the flip side of the coin is Obvious Corp's (The trading name of Evan's new business) latest venture, Twitter (http://www.twitter.com).

Twitter definitely takes Ev & Co. back to what they know best; personal publishing. Twitter allows it's users to answer the eternal question, "What are you doing now?"

Twitter's users update the world with information about what they are currently doing; that very second.

Responses can be as varied as:
"Taking a shower before taking the dog for a walk"
"Eating noodles"
"Heading out the house for an hour or two"

If you thought that this type of micro-blogging wouldn't have a future then you may be surprised to hear that the newly launched Twitter is being reported as being more successful than its established brother Odeo.

Twitter is fast growing a loyal, active community of users who (via the Twitter site, via their mobile phone or via one of the many blog plugins and widgets) update their friends, family and complete strangers alike with a run down of their day.

Signup at Twitter.com for FREE and keep us updated with what you are doing, right now.