I just tried to reproduce the issue and i was wrong in my statement about it taking a short time for gwibber to be able to access the couchdb database instance. I'm guessing the failure happens during the time gwibber is checking for "accounts" & if the don't exists the account creation interface is displayed. I had to attempt to start gwibber 4 times before it would fully start. and created accounts.

Here is the output from my second, third or fourth run at this:
[<replacedUserName>@sdgl07lkktxax ~]$ gwibber
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/gwibber", line 57, in <module>
    client.Client()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gwibber/client.py", line 332, in __init__
    self.w = GwibberClient()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gwibber/client.py", line 21, in __init__
    self.settings = util.SettingsMonitor()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gwibber/util.py", line 85, in __init__
    DEFAULT_SETTINGS)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gwibber/microblog/util/couch.py", line 71, in __init__
    self.database.put_record(CouchRecord({}, record_type, recordid))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/desktopcouch/records/server_base.py", line 171, in put_record
    self.db[record.record_id] = record._data
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/couchdb/client.py", line 345, in __setitem__
    resp, data = self.resource.put(id, content=content)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/couchdb/client.py", line 1027, in put
    **params)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/couchdb/client.py", line 1069, in _request
    raise ResourceConflict(error)
couchdb.client.ResourceConflict: ('conflict', 'Document update conflict.')

[<replacedUserName>@sdgl06lkktxax ~]$ gwibber
No dbus monitor yet
Updating...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/gwibber", line 57, in <module>
    client.Client()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gwibber/client.py", line 332, in __init__
    self.w = GwibberClient()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gwibber/client.py", line 22, in __init__
    self.messages = CouchDatabase(COUCH_DB_MESSAGES, create=True)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/desktopcouch/records/server.py", line 58, in __init__
    server_class=server_class, oauth_tokens=oauth_tokens, ctx=ctx)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/desktopcouch/records/server_base.py", line 125, in __init__
    self._server.create(database)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/couchdb/client.py", line 210, in create
    self.resource.put(validate_dbname(name))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/couchdb/client.py", line 1027, in put
    **params)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/couchdb/client.py", line 1071, in _request
    raise PreconditionFailed(error)
couchdb.client.PreconditionFailed: ('file_exists', 'The database could not be created, the file already exists.')

[<replacedUserName>@sdgl06lkktxax ~]$ gwibber
No dbus monitor yet
Updating...
ERROR:dbus.proxies:Introspect error on com.Gwibber:/com/gwibber/Service: dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Launch helper exited with unknown return code 1
2010-01-30 23:09:01,112 - Introspect error on com.Gwibber:/com/gwibber/Service: dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Launch helper exited with unknown return code 1
DEBUG:dbus.proxies:Executing introspect queue due to error
[<replacedUserName>@sdgl06lkktxax ~]$