Bagcheck had so much promise :(. The UI was so elegantly designed and there are still bits of it that I'm trying to pull apart for my own designs.

At the end of the day though, the engagement just wasn't there. You would go on there a few times, check out a couple of bags, maybe create one or two and then never come back. It's sad it didn't work out but the founders are all insanely talented people and I'm sure whatever they go on to do next, it will also be awesome.

Quite interesting they went for one of the smallest ones in this sphere and not Pinterest: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/bagcheck.com+pinterest.com+... - also similar is thefancy.com.

Thanks for mentioning Pinterest as a comparison, because for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what Bagcheck was or how to use it.

Pinterest on the other hand took me a mere 10seconds to figure out what it was and how enthusiastically I wanted to use it.

If you don't mind, would you explain what the draw is? (I'm genuinely trying to understand. I don't _get_ pinterest, and given the interest it's generating, I'd love to...)

For me personally, it was the right tool at the right time.

I got tired of saving pictures of the products and architectures I liked. I was searching but I don't remember how I came across Pinterest, but when I did, I had to get in. It was early in their beta, so I sent off an email to Ben and said if you want a loyal user, let me in right now.. and he did. It was exactly what I needed!

I've been collecting all the gems of the industrial design world ever since. I even got my mom registered so she can find inspiration for her home renovation.

It's very visually appealing. None stop inspiration.

I actually thought Bagcheck was a cool idea, I think given some time it would have morphed/pivotted into more of a business than just an idea.

pintrest looks great, like a tumblr for adults.

i get the impression that this is more of a talent acquisition. i doubt twitter cares about the product all that much.

No kidding, Sam’s a very talented guy. I was hanging around the Groovy project back in 2005, I think, before he became Yahoo CTO. You could really tell what a smart guy Sam was and his ideas and critiques were always balanced. So I’m sure this is yet another blessing for Twitter.

I'm with you on that, but the concept is a good one albeit not widely adopted. I've only created on bag, but I still peek in there now and again to see what other people are putting together. It's niche, but still a good, simple starting point if Twitter wants to get into eCommerce. That being said, Luke is a talent no matter where he goes and hopefully he'll bring about some good UX to the poorly-designed Twitter front end.

http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1371 Looks like Luke is not going to Twitter.

So I guess we won't be getting a great, Luke-designed interface at Twitter. It's all in the API, guys, it's all in the API.

Pinterest is probably my favorite web discovery for 2011. I can easily get lost in there for 15 minutes/day repining. I am sure some users spend one hour or more/day on the site.

Same here. I am planning my wedding, and Pinterest has been invaluable! Protip: If you can find the founders email (I can't remember of the top of my head), you can ask for an invite directly, instead of rotting away on the invite list.

That would have been super nice. I think I waited several weeks, but I got in :). Thanks.

Annoys me when i can't create an account on a site without a twitter or facebook account. Not everybody uses these services.

A twitter account is a pretty low bar. You don't have to use your real name and you don't have to tell anyone it exists.

But enough people do. Time to get on the bandwagon.

I view Facebook and Twitter as unnecessary playgounds for me. My objective is to limit my channels of communication so i don't have to micromanage all these unproductive services. I don't see why you'd want to limit your user base like this.

At what point did you stop applying that argument to sites that require an email address to sign up?

I'm not sure I understand your question - and if I do it sounds like you're trying to frame a very poor argument.

He's saying Twitter and Facebook are becoming, for today, what email was 10 years ago. You may have seen email as "an unproductive service" back then, because why would you email when you could call and write letters?

Then sites started requiring emails to sign up - and you signed up anyway. Why wouldn't sites just let you register through snail mail? They're limiting their user base!

In all seriousness, Twitter and Facebook are trending, and you might as well adopt them. Not doing so would strike me as a bit of technological ignorance.

Difference - all e-mail addresses follow the same standard. Twitter & FB are just two of many competing "social media" places.

I should join Twitter and Facebook just because everyone else is? And if I don't I'm technologically ignorant?

I guess i'll go signup for every third party service to reach enlightenment. Thanks

I think the concern here is that, even if you make an account specifically for the purpose of authenticating to other websites, you're still telling Facebook, Google, Twitter... which websites you're signing up on, which they of course have an interest in knowing so that they can better profile you as a user.

Note: I have accounts on these sites and actively use them, just my guess as to other peoples' rationale behind not getting an account.

I have to add that your method makes it really easy to avoid lame sites also!

Implement Facebook Connect: 5 minutes

Implement own login system: X hours

Selling your users privacy down the river: Priceless

Looks like just a talent acquisition of one developer. The other co-founder, Luke, is not even joining Twitter. If I would to guess, the acquisition is sub $500,000. Any other guesses?

Sam is worth well over 500k.

That was my impression too :-)

Is this a talent acquisition, or does Twitter plan to roll this into their site somehow?

Wish I had come across BagCheck before. It looks like a great site!

congrats, sam and luke!