Neither the technology nor the product seem to jump out of the paper... Just like toilet paper. Which is not bad but doesn't require more attention.
The other problem is around this set of ideas that grab users attention for quick bites that are essentially empty calories. I feel that these are gamified, product hacked versions that are hard to replicate but ultimately not inspiring.
Today no one can turn their own micropublishing idea into a Twitter competitor, because by the time it achieves even 0.1% of Twitter’s success, Twitter will just clone its features to kill its momentum.
Facebook clones features or as a company has various spin offs. I thought twitter stayed pretty true to form?
Although your point stands. If you are using a cool feature to differentiate and that feature is cloneable, there is risk that one of the large players will implement it.