The death of birdsite just made me think about how grateful I am to have had that little wormhole of culture. I interacted people from around the world that I never would have, otherwise, and in some cases it was literally rewarding. It definitely feels like the kind of thing that smartphones are supposed to be doing: exchanging short notes on the global Memex.
It's not every day that we get VCs to fund a digital commons that is as horizontal as birdsite.