Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting tweet: "... someone made the old @heroku for node.js" -- did Heroku start out as a browser-based app builder?
Yes, Heroku was the first. I tried it out. It was fun, but I think they realised that though it was a novel idea, it was not the _Big Idea_, and they replaced it with what they now have. That's pretty inspiring when you consider how much work they threw away and how that decision has been rewarded.
I would say what they threw away was essentially a gimmick. Assuming the functionality of Heroku was the same before and after, publishing from github rather than publishing based on editing files online doesn't change their offering.