Basically several addresses that forward to your primary address to give them impression of numerous staff members.

Did you mean contact us page or about us page?

Toward the end of the day the figures showing were 1 and 1. :D

This is a great article hinting at a great problem when sites first launch. There is no traffic!

We launched with Recently Uploaded and New People. We also have forums.

I don’t think these site features hurt us/have hurt us in anyway. Especially forums because having an active communication line with your audience and scaling that is more important then having an impossible way in touch with you.

Would you rather goto the club with or without a bartender?

Another thought… before launch, I did think it was going to be a good idea to have a ticker of how many users had signed up to show initial growth when we hit techcrunch press. A VC told me that was crazy and decided to nix it during feature lockdown. Probably for the best but maybe not?

I think there are bigger worries then showing how busy a site is but rather building a great product that has functional use.

I think I talked about this a bit with Colin in Philly. I think its fine to publish stats as you grow, but why draw attention to it when growth might not be there. While you may have hit TC and got the gold bar from them, not everyone does. This article was mainly for the 98.25% of startups that don't/can't get the buzz going from the large blogs.

I agree that a great product is important but for this article, the product doesn't matter.

I was pretty excited when I found a friend to invite me to iminlikewithyou. Same when I finally got into GMail. I’ve never gotten excited about Yahoo! Mail. If an idea resonates with a user, it is more exciting when the site is somewhat empty than overflowing with people. Ever read through the comments for a popular YouTube video lately? It’s a minefield of spam and pointless flaming. Early-adopting, passionate, evangelist users are much more likely to carry the flag for a site that is in it’s infancy, than a crowded one.

Is it better to be big than small? Of course. Would I flip a switch to be big if I could? In a second. But it doesn’t make sense for startups to pretend to be something that they’re not.

Focus on the idea.
Nail your features.
Make your demographic fanatical.

I’d much rather be at a half-full bar where I love every song the DJ plays, than at a full bar where I have to scream to talk and have people spilling their drink on me.

This is especially true for new Web apps who aren't a Google product or those that have a "celeb' name as founder.