I think it did gain some traction and had a lot of users. It was a very nice app imo, and quite useful, in spite of occasional weirdness. I think the problem was a lack of business model and/or 'hockey stick growth' that would bring in money sufficient to break even/break out.
They did write some very useful open source Clojure code which will live on. I am very surprised one of the BigCos (Google, Twitter) didn't acquihire them - a very talented team.
Reading about the team was what attracted me to the app a few years ago, but the app just didn't stick with me (force of habit of using twitter as a news feed). I'm sure it got better over the years and I should have tried it again.
