There have been rumors that Digg’s Kevin Rose has been working on a new startup for some time, but he wasn’t talking. I spent a good amount of time this last weekend at FOO Camp trying to get some of the details out of him, but all he would say is that he’d be contacting us soon.
Today he’s made a bit of a public announcement about the project. It’s called Pownce, and he wrote about it a bit on his tumblr blog. The founding team of the company also includes Leah Culver, Daniel Burka, and Shawn Allen.
Pownce looks to be a web based sharing network with an optional desktop client (built on Adobe Air) for advanced features. Without having had the opportunity to test it, it looks to be overlapping with AllPeers and Pando, and possibly others. It also clearly has basic social networking features – see Rose’s profile page for the service here.
Right now, there are four basic things you can send: messages, links, files, and events.
You might send an event out to a dozen of your friends letting them know you’re hosting a party this Friday. They could easily get the event details you entered, respond with questions or comments and then quickly rsvp.
Say you had a great photo you wanted to share with all of your friends. Just add the file and all of your friends will get it right away. They’ll be able to reply and tell you if it’s cool. You could even post songs you recorded in your home studio to share with your friends.
It’s in private beta currently, but you can request an invitation on the home page.
Kevin’s been on a bit of a roll lately. Digg continues to grow, and his other startup, Revision3, just raised another round of financing.
Hmm. Don’t see much to do here that can’t be accomplished with e-mail?
agreed with Phil, hardly ground breaking.
It’s looks cool, from what I can see…
1 – What distinguishes it from Yahoo IM ( which seems to have the exact same feature set )?
2 – Is Kevin Rose really Michael Arrington’s illegitimate love child?
I don’t get it. Does it do anything new? I’m sure it will be wildly popular regardless.
Yeah – not sure if there’s anything to it… doesn’t facebook already let you do all the above?
Looks to me like another flop.
Ad – yes, but Facebook makes you do it all online, and that’s just so 1st quarter 2007, man.
+1 for being a django web app. good to see.
When 2.0 looks like 1.0…
ummm…wtf…
You guys are missing the point. This is Twitter, plus Dave Winer’s currently-gestating TwitterGram concept. I wonder how useful segmenting out events and links will be, though, versus just using general text tweeting for it. If there’s calendar software integration or an RSVPing mechanism, I could see it being very useful. For links maybe not as much, but I’m sure some social bookmark tie-ins would make it at least interesting (and I’m sure there’ll be Digg integration).
man i was expecting something really cool.
Sounds like twitter with file exchange capability.
The fact that something is new or not doesn’t really matter does it?
Twitter was JUST im in a webpage, Digg was JUST Slashdot in a different lay-out and Google was just Goto.com in a different time.
The real question is; is it slightly better and is that good enough.
And it just might be…
Change the name in the story and there would be no story: “Adam Something’s New Startup: Pownce” nothing new here.
Anyone know what the file size limitations are?
Side note:
Anyone here that can design a front-end using the exact same technologies? We have an explicit revenue model and a very different service; an equity stake is available for the right person.
“Looks to me like another flop.”
And what successful social sites have you created? Here’s an idea. Lets hold judgment until we actually get to USE the service. Ya I know, hard to fathom.
In a world where being linked by techcrunch means money, I consider the link to that project a form of corruption or at least cronyism. I get the feeling that the entire Web 2.0 thing is nothing more than a bunch of SF buddies out to create the next bubble based on what’s usually inside a bubble: air. If it’s hot air, that’s a luxury.
I wonder why some people get publicity for junk just because they have a successful site already. Take everything as it is – dont go by past work. Bad for Techcrunch’s reputation.
Garbage. There’s no value in this service, and most of all, nobody’s going to use it. Let’s stop discussing garbage services such as this.
so a twitter web version and air version with file transfer, pretty sure biz stone already has this planned
Pretend this wasn’t founded by notable members of the valley brat pack and instead built by 4 people called ‘Dave, Colin, Imran and Claire in Boulder, CO’ and this thing wouldn’t get a look in anywhere.
A certain other ‘face of web 2.0′ twittered earlier that it only became interested when she heard who was behind it. Haha
I’m sure it will get some reasonab traffic because Kevin Rose’s name is on it (doesn’t look like from the ‘about us’ page he did much other than ‘advise’) but then what?
It looks like it was cheap to build and I guess they’ll get their investment back and some pocket money, but it’s not a defenable business and has nothing on Skype or even email + twitter as a solution other than the face it looks pretty.
Pownce is yet another feature-as-a-company thing that could be built by anyone.
It’s a shame, when they said they were going to do a ‘new take on IM’ I was actually quite excited.
Isn’t this just IRC with a cleaner front end?
I think it could be quite fun.
Yet another ’shake & bake’ startup made to flip to an idiotic acquiring company that cannot develop themselves for much much less.
“Businesses are successful because someone makes the sacrifices others are unwilling to.”
Kevin is on the way to become the first utterly successful **parallel** entrepreneur.
I hope we will see a more critical analysis once people get into the app on TC. Right now it feels like a friend push #49 – see Mahalo for another example.
#19 – oh
#22 – yep, I am sure we will see a Valleywag post soon. It’s like the online version of Saved by the Bell. Everyone has done everyone else at some point in the show’s history.
OH MY GOD!! Another social networking site where I can share stuff with my friends after I convince them all to sign up!! OH OH Sign me up!
Wait, couldn’t I just do all this through my gmail account?
This is the most ground breaking web/desktop combination application to hit the world since Microsoft Office.
good to see hands-on experiments with django and air; pro or con premature praise – making use of your halo is just fine.
I agree with Tom (#11), I am not sure how the segmentation between messages, events and links will practically work (for example I tried to link to the home page of an event I posted) but I like the clean UI. It is sort of an in-between Jaiku and Twitter+Twitterific.
I am getting sick of this guy.
it’s legal p2p – that’s the bigger opportunity.
one that’s slicker the pando. pando is not marketing or pitched well.
gmail accounts limit files sizes. no good for big p2p media files.
Web2.0 is starting to remind me of a grunge band going to seattle. Only in this case, the goal is to head to SV, make a name for yourself, and get some VC. The space will consolidate and move on soon and the VC’s who are caught up in the hype are going to lose their shorts for funding future spin-offs (by those we were lucky enough to make a name for themselves early on).
nothing special- rather dumb. sick to what you know.
wth is this? I don’t see anything new here.
@david hyman –
“it’s legal p2p”
the legality of peer networks is judged by the content, not the tool
in fact i suspect this tool has already been used to transmit copyrighted material by its own developers
this is really nice to know. But this is not new things, beacause any one can send it via email.
I’m sure this will be useful for some people, but I have social network fatigue right now. I don’t need another separate profile on yet another site.
Now, if they will let you import networks from other web apps, THAT would get me to use it.
Not that I like this product –
but TC readers are hawks…
technology-pessimists hawks who don’t see the light in nothing but their own product they developed
Hmmm… Nothing new here…. but it has the Kevin Rose brand, so it will generate some $$$
I don’t understand all these communication start ups. My friends use MSN, AIM, GTalk and texting.. why the hell would I need Twitter and Pownce?!?!?
Wow, sounds a lot like my software…
First off here’s the big difference.
It runs on adobe’s air.
which means its cross platform immediately,
same program mac and pc.
try doing that with messenger,
google talk… nope.
if it organizes everything properly for you, it can be very very useful.
better yet i bet it will interface with the sites you love.
but really that doesnt mater.
if it does what you need better and quicker, switching is a no brainer.
“It runs on adobe’s air.
which means its cross platform immediately”
no, it is not cross platform, it is monoplatform, namely the air platform. you still have to install that software. whats the diff from yahoo IM?
do not confuse this with legit web pages that can be viewed by any client implementing the open protocols
by the way you forget to mention that it will make my bed in the morning and wash my car…your comments seem to be autogenerated fluff
#44 pwnt by #45 ^_^
Looks like another variant of Facebook.
If i were Twitter i might be mad. Pretty much a blatant rip off.
Hmmm…Not that interesting. Guess we’ll see when it goes public. Not quite on-topic, but I’m looking forward to Windows Server 2008 for its VPN replacement capabilities.
Hmmm…doesn’t look like anything special or groundbreaking at all…