Popjam suffering while we share jokes on Twitter — not Popjam

Back in February we were excited to see a sort of “Humorous Twitter” appear in the form of Popjam. Except it wasn’t – it was more a microblogging-meets-Digg-meets-CollegeHumour. But as we said at the time, getting Twitter integration fast would really help.

Aiming at College Humour and eBaumsworld or Icanhascheezburger with something Twitter-like seemed like a no-brainer and it was PopJam’s aim to effectively ‘sit above’ all of these sources. And the gaming element with a leaderboard was a smart idea. We duly wrote it up:

However, although they used the Twitter mechanic of ‘follow’, they didn’t integrate with Twitter and therefore didn’t get on the back of Twitter’s recent massive growth. That looks to have been a costly mistake. While everyone is off sharing their jokes and funny videos on Twitter, Popjam is being passed by. The last update on the site was three days ago (actually pretty funny).

I’ve asked co-founder and CEO, Alex Tew – the wunder-kid behind The Million Dollar Home page and most recently the Sockandawe smash hit viral game – what they plan to do next. No response as yet, but I hope the answer is ‘integrate Twitter, and fast’.

The startup is backed by an undisclosed amount of Angel funding from lead investor Paul Birch (a co-founder of Bebo with Brother Michael), while Michael Smith (of Mind Candy, Firebox) and Tom Boardman (also Firebox) also participated.