I have been waiting for someone to write a post like this. Not because I think it's important to discuss one startup versus the other necessarily - they have very different markets in my mind - but because an exploration of the developing NYC aesthetic is worth examining.<p>I actually think it has a lot to do with early users. In the Bay Area, it's easy to find a large group of beta testers and early users who "get" technology in a profound way that (sadly) no where else in the country does. This contributes to the SV echo chamber and yields a certain type of feedback that in turn creates very distinctly "west coast" products.  In New York, the number of truly tech-savvy social web types is much smaller and the majority come from media and advertising - ie, people who care first about design, and second about everything else.<p>While I'm sure the debate could rage all day about <i>real</i> growth and traffic stats, that's not what I took away from this article at all.