Earlier this year, Leah Culver appeared on the cover of a tech magazine blowing an enormous pink bubble. But the shrill-voiced San Francisco programmer no longer desires fame — even the modest sort afforded Silicon Valley's microcelebrities. The turnabout seems odd, considering how aggressively she once courted notoriety.

Pownce founder Leah Culver has made more geeks go wild than we can count. For starters: Daniel Burka of Digg; LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick; and Justin.tv's Kyle Vogt. They're all history, however. One tipster confirms our suspicions that Culver and Flickr's Cal Henderson are "definitely dating." But another writes:

I blame Twitter. It's not enough to be a website anymore. Oh no. You must be a platform. Have an API. Court developers. Build an "ecosystem." Whatever. You know what an application programming interface really is? An admission that you're too poor, cheap, or uncreative to build all the features your website needs. Pownce is the latest to 'fess up to its shortcomings. The file-sharing and messaging site has released its own API. Incomplete, naturally. Maybe they can release an API for their API and have someone else finish it for them.