Twitter founder heads in new direction

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Biz Stone knows abandoning a struggling project to try something else can be a smart move.

After all, he was part of a team that dumped the seldom-heard podcasting service Odeo nearly a decade ago to work on a new idea called Twitter that transformed how people communicate and made him a multimillionaire.

Stone is hoping his latest change in direction pays off as he heads down a new path at Jelly Industries, a San Francisco startup he launched shortly after leaving Twitter three years ago.

Jelly made headlines 16 months ago with the release of mobile app that taps into social networks to find experts who can answer questions that stump Internet search engines. Within a few months, Stone and Jelly co-founder Ben Finkel realized the question-and-answer format wasn't catching on so they came up with a different app called Super for sharing opinions.

Super's name reflects how Stone feels about the app about five months after it was released.

"We know in our guts that this has legs, just as we knew in our guts that it was time to stop working on Jelly," Stone says.

Super is trying to broaden its appeal with an app update available today.