Fired from Twitter for three months, he returned with a competitor Spill "killing"

Organize | Zheng Liyuan

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It's been three months since Musk acquired and took over Twitter. This means that the first people laid off have also been away from Twitter for three months.

Some of these people have already found their home, some are still looking for new opportunities, and some are immediately turning around and "starting over" — Alphonzo Terrell, Twitter's former global director of social and editorial teams.

Since being laid off in November 2022, Alphonzo Terrell has decided to start a business without stopping: "I don't want to take a break, my mind is full of, 'Oh, it's time to create a new one, whether we get support or not'. ”

Goal: To become a "next-generation real-time conversational social platform"

Luckily, Alphonzo Terrell wasn't alone in his startup, and he found DeVaris Brown, a former product lead at Twitter.

The two first met at Twitter onboarding, but DeVaris Brown left Twitter in 2020 to start Meroxa, a company that helps businesses build data pipelines, and the two have remained in touch for several years.

When Alphonzo Terrell was also cut off from Twitter, the two decided to work together on a new app called Spill, positioning Spill as "a real-time conversational platform that puts culture first." The name "Spill" is derived from the English phrase "Spill the tea", which means "share or reveal gossip, gossip".

Why is "culture" going to come first? Because Alphonzo Terrell and DeVaris Brown are both black, over the years, we have witnessed many black people who were active on social platforms such as Twitter being ignored, black content creators' works being stolen but difficult to appeal, and black people receiving fewer rewards than others. Alphonzo Terrell said: "It's really a platform issue. ”

Therefore, Alphonzo Terrell and DeVaris Brown decided that the posts in Spill will be generated on the blockchain, both in terms of how the posts are distributed and how creators are incentivized, based on blockchain technology. To avoid misunderstandings, Alphonzo Terrell added: "The use of blockchain is not only to give creators peace of mind, but also to establish a model that automatically performs incentive statistics on creators, and ultimately creators will receive real cash dollars, not cryptocurrency." ”

In addition, it is envisaged that Spill, like Twitter, will have a live news feed where users can post "spills" and build a "tea party" feature that allows users to host events online and offline, and then receive in-app rewards to promote their posts or sell them.

However, in an interview with the media, Alphonzo Terrell emphasized: "We are not trying to be a 'replacement' for Twitter. He said that development teams, including him, want Spill to be "the next generation of real-time conversational social platforms," and for this Spill will also introduce next-generation technologies such as AI: "There are a lot of exciting technologies out there, but they aren't being put to good use in platforms that were built 10-15 years ago." ”

$2.75 million in financing raised

Once they had a rough idea, Alphonzo Terrell and DeVaris Brown began to form a team — Spill is known to have fewer than 10 employees.

Despite the small number of people, Alphonzo Terrell has more than a decade of experience in marketing and social content, and before joining Twitter, he also accumulated a lot at companies such as HBO and Showtime. As a result, TechCrunch said of Alphonzo Terrell as "taking the pulse that social media users really want."

Another co-founder and CTO DeVaris Brown, who has a lot of research in machine learning, is leading an AI moderation model for Spill that plans to include black dialects — studies show that most AIs can't understand the cultural context of certain dialects. As a result, DeVaris Brown lamented, "This is probably the first large-scale language content moderation model built from scratch with AI that is actually built by people in the culture." ”

In addition, Spill has three strategic advisors, including former Twitter design chief Dantley Davis, OscarsSoWhite founder and DEI advocate April Reign, and civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson.

Surprisingly, such a team of less than 10 people received a lot of support. According to TechCrunch, the project has received more than 60,000 bookings since Spill's official announcement in mid-December, and this week raised $2.75 million in seed pre-round funding, led by MaC Venture Capital, Kapor Center and Sunset Ventures.

For the funding, Alphonzo Terrell said he will begin expanding his team, starting with hiring for four positions in engineering and community management, while Spill plans to launch an alpha version in the first quarter of this year.

Netizens are not optimistic about Spill

Unlike Alphonzo Terrell's excitement, many netizens are not optimistic about Spill, some out of disgust with the name, and some have a negative view of using blockchain technology.

"Another deceptive blockchain application?!"

"Hate the name!"

"A bad name plus the need to use blockchain is bound to be an impractical thing."

There are also a few netizens who are dissatisfied with the current Twitter, but have expectations for Spill:

"Compared to Twitter now, Spill sounds pretty good anyway."

"I miss the old tweet, and Spill looks good."

Others were surprised by Alphonzo Terrell's experience of being fired as a competitor: "What is this cool story? "So what do you think about that?

Reference Links:

https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/30/three-months-ago-he-was-laid-off-from-twitter-now-his-competing-app-spill-is-funded/

https://adage.com/article/digital-marketing-ad-tech-news/former-twitter-workers-launch-rival-app-spill/2459711