RawSugar, a service that has been compared as a del.icio.us competitor, but in actuality had a number of great differentiating features, is in funding trouble. My friend Bill Lazar has some to say about this, as a do a few folks like Steve Rubel.

RawSugar isn’t dead, nor does it deserve to be. One feature it has – the capability to consume and coalesce your personal content streams and tag them – is one that I feel should be adopted by other social media. I was planning to figure out how to leverage it – finally – when the news broke over the holiday. Notice my experimenting with del.icio.us in my right hand menu.

RawSugar, to me, is a victim of two things: 1. A UI that hides the good stuff. It’s front door is little more than a pitch/splash page when it should surface the activity taking place within. 2. A lack of attention in the online press – grassroots and otherwise. No matter what anyone says – there is only so much attention to go around and only a few people who have direct influence over it. Without their attention influence as a help – it takes a groundswell approach – vast numbers of those with lessor influence – helping spread word. It’s possible. But far more difficult. Hence the demand to get noticed by blogs like Techcrunch. Being labeled too easily as a “del.icio.us” competitor – unfairly since it has a host of differentiators – didn’t help either.

I hope they get some funding. In the meantime, Bill is up for some new opportunities.