The crowded field of X clones, formerly Twitter, has just winnowed a bit, as Pebble has officially thrown in the towel. The social media site, formerly called T2 Social, was actually created by ex-Twitter employees and this announcement occurred just five weeks after the rebrand to Pebble.
Originally founded as T2, the social media platform was developed by two former Twitter employees, Gabor Cselle and Sarah Oh. Cselle left Twitter in 2016, long before Musk came along. However, Oh, who worked as Twitter’s human rights advisor, was laid off by Musk in his first round of layoffs at the company in November 2022.
The company is transparent when it comes to the reasoning behind the closure, saying “we were not growing quickly enough for investors to believe that we will break out.” Pebble also noted the crowded field of competitors and the “uphill climb” to garner traffic and sustained use. It simply needed more time to “build out a complete Pebble”, but investors put the kibosh on that idea.
Though the app’s going the way of the dodo, current users will be given some time to log in and download their personal archives. Just head to account settings on the web version and look for an option marked “wrap it up please.” Additionally, the company says this might not be the absolute end for Pebble, suggesting that folks “stay tuned” for a potential reinvention of the platform at some point in the future.
Pebble was committed to Twitter’s original mission of becoming a “public town square” and even tried to lure verified Twitter users by allowing them to keep their checkmarks. The app’s shutdown suggests this strategy didn’t work. Good night, sweet prince.
In the meantime, there are still plenty of Twit-alikes out there for those looking to escape endless porn bot scam accounts commenting on every single post you make and blue-check bozos bloviating about nonsense. There are the big apps, like Threads and Bluesky, but also Mastodon, Post, Spoutible, Spill, Hive Social, CounterSocial, and that Trump one, among others. The last day to post on Pebble is November 1.
