Kevin Rose’s New Startup: Pownce

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1. Phil
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 12:42 pm

   Hmm. Don’t see much to do here that can’t be accomplished with e-mail?

2. Andrew
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 12:44 pm

   agreed with Phil, hardly ground breaking.

3. Todd
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 12:45 pm

   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?

4. Chris
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 12:45 pm

   I don’t get it. Does it do anything new? I’m sure it will be wildly popular regardless.

5. Ad
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 12:53 pm

   Yeah - not sure if there’s anything to it… doesn’t facebook already let you do all the above?

6. mike
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

   Looks to me like another flop.

7. Neil
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

   Ad - yes, but Facebook makes you do it all online, and that’s just so 1st quarter 2007, man.

8. kevin
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

   +1 for being a django web app. good to see.

9. Stef
   

   June 27th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

   When 2.0 looks like 1.0…

10. hello
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

    ummm…wtf…

11. Tom
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

    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).

12. aw
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:07 pm

    man i was expecting something really cool.

13. Chris
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:07 pm

    Sounds like twitter with file exchange capability.

14. Boris
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:07 pm

    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…

15. HH!
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:17 pm

    Change the name in the story and there would be no story: “Adam Something’s New Startup: Pownce” nothing new here.

16. bdb
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    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.

17. Jessica
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

    “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.

18. fauigerzigerk
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:32 pm

    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.

19. Al
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:33 pm

    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.

20. Larry
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:34 pm

    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.

21. Alaska Miller
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    so a twitter web version and air version with file transfer, pretty sure biz stone already has this planned

22. Jekyl
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    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.

23. Geoffrey McCaleb
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    Isn’t this just IRC with a cleaner front end?

    I think it could be quite fun.

24. km4
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:00 pm

    Yet another ’shake & bake’ startup made to flip to an idiotic acquiring company that cannot develop themselves for much much less.

25. KindAndThoughtful
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:00 pm

    “Businesses are successful because someone makes the sacrifices others are unwilling to.”

26. Emre Sokullu
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:02 pm

    Kevin is on the way to become the first utterly successful **parallel** entrepreneur.

27. Bobby Andersen
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    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.

28. 60 in 3
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:10 pm

    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?

29. Mik
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:10 pm

    This is the most ground breaking web/desktop combination application to hit the world since Microsoft Office.

30. thomas
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    good to see hands-on experiments with django and air; pro or con premature praise - making use of your halo is just fine.

31. Jeff Clavier
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    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.

32. toby
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:18 pm

    I am getting sick of this guy.

33. david hyman
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

    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.

34. Web2.0 is Dead
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:29 pm

    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).

35. Andrew
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:33 pm

    nothing special- rather dumb. sick to what you know.

36. xpherion
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:35 pm

    wth is this? I don’t see anything new here.

37. whoopee
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:39 pm

    @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

38. G.K. Singh
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

    this is really nice to know. But this is not new things, beacause any one can send it via email.

39. Susanna
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 2:57 pm

    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.

40. lawrence
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:08 pm

    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

41. DinoHorse
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:11 pm

    Hmmm… Nothing new here…. but it has the Kevin Rose brand, so it will generate some $$$

42. Hudson
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

    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?!?!?

43. Andy Arnott
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    Wow, sounds a lot like my software…

44. smaster
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:32 pm

    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.

45. whoopee
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:41 pm

    “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

46. hello
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    #44 pwnt by #45 ^_^

47. Kevin
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

    Looks like another variant of Facebook.

48. William
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

    If i were Twitter i might be mad. Pretty much a blatant rip off.

49. David Mackey
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:07 pm

    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.

50. VeryLiberating
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:08 pm

    Hmmm…doesn’t look like anything special or groundbreaking at all…

51. Rick
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

    Seems useless to me. I use e-mail or IM. When the file is too big, I use MegaUpload.com

52. Sean
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

    It doesn’t matter how cool or crappy the news/product is. If it has to do with Google, Digg, Kevin Rose, FaceBook, of MySpace, you can guarantee you’ll read about it on TC.

    Getting old, really.

    I’m not saying this product is good or bad. Just saying.

    How about some variety?

53. Todd
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:29 pm

    Despite the fact that this article makes a reference to All peers, its seems that none of these negative comments make any mention of it. Have any of you actually tried All peers? I doubt it. Its a great idea, just needs a more polished implementation. Perhaps KR can provide this. It social P2P. Something that might be a workaround to the share with one and share with all problem with P2P today.

    1. Social networking sites all host from a central server. Problem with file sizes, copyrighted files.
    2. All peers is true P2P, no central server involved. Except to facilitate who can talk/share/text with who.
    3. You share with who you want in P2P fashion. Direct P2P, no uploading.

    Think my space without having to register with a website and share with everybody on the planet. Your less likely to attract the attention of spammers, copyright cops, people you don’t know, paedophiles, people you dont want in your circle etc. if only you and the people you choose are involved on your circle. Its like exclusive email meeting my space/face book. Hell, its not even out yet. If you want an idea, try out all peers to get an idea.

54. Rosesuxcox
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:42 pm

    I agree there’s nothing new here. Just another program that no body needs.
    With Trillian MSN and Yahoo msgr, who needs more crap programs like this.

    You get an F for failure.

55. Drama 2.0
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:44 pm

    Before commenting on the actual product, I think there’s something interesting that has been overlooked. Kevin Rose is now apparently intimately involved with three startups, two of which (Digg and Revision3) have raised a fairly substantial amount of money from institutional investors (I’m sure funding is right around the corner for Pownce if it hasn’t already been raised). From Kevin’s perspective, this is great. Despite the fact that Digg has reportedly found it difficult to make money and several suitors such as News Corp. have allegedly passed on the opportunity to acquire it, Kevin has managed to leverage his Web 2.0 poster boy status to create new startups and get promotion and funding for them. Smart diversification move for him.

    I must, however, question the sensibility of investors who tolerate and support such behavior. As an investor I would personally want to ensure that the founders and management team of any startup that I had invested in were 110% committed to that startup. Having key personnel split time with other startups should be something that investors frown upon, especially when a startup hasn’t yet earned a cent of profit. Founders and management shouldn’t be able to have their cake and eat it too; if you want to collect a salary and maintain a large equity position, you should fulfill your moral and fiduciary duty to the investors to help create value (or give a commercially reasonable attempt to do so as was expected when the investor wrote you a check). Needless to say, I think investors who not only allow this behavior but encourage it are only shooting themselves in the foot over the long-run.

    As for the product itself, it looks unremarkable, as most posters seem to agree. But I do see some potential here. There is a market for Pownce: NASA. The space organization is looking for good Web 2.0 technologies and I’m sure Powce would be great addition to NASA’s superior internal communications infrastructure. See:

    http://www.drama20show.com/2007/06/27/nasa-20/

56. Rosesuxcox
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:45 pm

    PS: They should fix the bugs on digg before attempting to start another venture.

57. Allen Stern
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

    #55 Drama - spot on. My best comparison would be a baseball player making 14 million a year working on the side at xyz firm. They wouldn’t allow it. I guess Kevin is just a “name” on Digg now so he has the time for a new venture.

    But on the flip side, basically we have a thing going around now where supposed former successful people believe it will rollover to the next. Will we see these “Valleystars” just pimp their name on things like celebs do on cologne?

    Guy = truemors
    Jason = mahalo
    Kevin = pownce

    These guys attach their names to this and they get instant cred. Not one of those 3 startups would get any traction if these names weren’t attached. Period.

    Should it be this way? I don’t know.

58. SEO Mash
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:55 pm

    Hmmm … they just registered the domain name 10 days ago and it shows. I hadn’t even gotten to the end of Michael’s review and I had already forgotten what it was called.

59. Larry
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 4:56 pm

    It’s definitely a nice sandwich of social networking and instant messaging
    http://www.ministryoftech.com/.....messaging/

60. Nick
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:06 pm

    Is it just me, or does this seem like another Truemors story? Big, bad entrepreneur releases a mediocre product. Let’s face it: if any of us (with the exception of Pete, of course released this thing, it wouldn’t see the light of day…

61. Hashim
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:09 pm

    But will it work with Facebook..?

62. Wes
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:14 pm

    It would have been good if there was some really new features. For me it sounds like its just yet another social networking site and in the end it will be down to personal preference, I think.

63. Drama 2.0
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:21 pm

    Allen: I don’t think it should be this way. Kevin has successfully built a personal brand around himself but he has not delivered the two most important things that investors want and by which true success should be measured:

    1. A viable business that can sustain itself (i.e. a business that is cashflow positive).
    2. A profitable liquidation event.

    If you have a track record of delivering those two things, maybe investors would have justification for cutting you some slack, but we’re increasingly seeing prima donna treatment of a number of individuals who have actually never proven an ability to create significant value for their backers. That’s not sensible. Additionally, it’s not sensible for institutional investors to support lifestyle ventures, but we’re increasingly seeing startups that look a lot like them. If Silicon Valley wants to remain a hub for innovation, the bar should be set high to encourage it. Silicon Valley is now starting to look a lot like Hollywood. Go figure.

    In Kevin Rose’s case, even though he isn’t the CEO of Digg, he’s listed as “Chief Architect” and I’m sure he collects a salary for this title. I don’t know how his equity is structured, but if I was an investor in Digg, I would be looking at the agreements in place to see what recourse I might have. If Kevin wants to play ball on other teams, he should resign from Digg and stop taking advantage of Digg’s resources which should be used solely for the creation of value in Digg’s business, not some other businesses its founder is involved with.

64. Saif
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:30 pm

    a friend pointed me to bzzster a few weeks ago. if you need a quick utility to zip links around to friends, you should give it a try.

65. Allen Stern
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

    As much as I wanted to hate this from all of the negativity going around. But it actually looks pretty good. Check out my video review.
    http://www.centernetworks.com/.....akin-sweet

    It’s a combo of Twitter, divshare and Renkoo.

66. akshay
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

    ‘YAWSN’ - “Yet Another Worthless Social Network”

67. Bob
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    Kevin should of stayed in School. Maybe he would of have learned more about how startups work.

    Nothing special here. Sorry Kevin Try harder next time.

68. Thomas
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:53 pm

    TechCrunch is on MySpace News everyday and gets a ton of votes. That’s really interesting. Kevin Rose is very intelligent. http://news.myspace.com/technology/internettech

69. Allen Stern
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 5:57 pm

    #63 Drama - Digg uses Digg to promote Digg. Revision3 uses Digg to promote Revision3. I have said since I began CN that Digg items should never be diggable. It promotes unfair competition (of course Digg is unfair at it’s root). Kevin Rose needs his Digg fanboys, that’s his personal brand that you call it. If Kevin left Digg, I think Digg would be closed in a short bit.

    All I can say is that from only 10 minutes of playing with Pownce, it seems pretty well done. The thing is that the audience for Pownce is shifted some from the Digg audience. That could show a weakness for his brand.

70. Allen Stern
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 6:02 pm

    Of course, I try to contact the team using their contact email address, and it’s broken.

    A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

    info@pownce.com
    SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO::
    host aspmx3.googlemail.com [64.233.167.27]: 550 5.1.1 No such user a70si3762824pye

71. Dennis G
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 6:06 pm

    This will be swamped by the digg community, prepare for an onslaught of 12 year olds. Hope the system scales well.

72. allsux
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 6:07 pm

    Hmmmm Digg is down, Pawnce is up, what’s next? Meanwhile, what about privacy invasion … it looks like unless you bust out money for the premium version you get ads inserted into your personal notes:

    http://www.weburbanist.com/200.....ied-email/

73. RBA
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 6:12 pm

    #57

    Should it be this way? Thing is, that’s how it is. Kawasaky himself has admitted he’s living off his name for the last 20 years (don’t know if that’s 100% accurate, but that’s what he said).

    And if you hit your first home run, people will be watching what you do next. And you won’t mind. And honestly neither would I.

    To me the issue is not “oh because they’re famous, now they get more press about the new stuff they do”. Again, that’s how the world works. So we all know Paris Hilton went to jail even if we don’t care. Do you know how many people are convicted daily?

    The issue is that in addition to using their name to gain that hard-to-get first momentum, they should make sure they build products that live up to what people expect from them.

    Some people have done it really well (Mark Fletcher comes to mind). He hit a first home run when nobody knew who he was (ONElist), then he hit another one (Bloglines) more because of what he built than because of who was behind it (that’s how I feel at least), then now he’s taking it easy, perhaps until something he feels it’s really great comes along again.

    Anyone else is simply taking advantage of their momentum. And those of you who feel it’s unfair, let me ask you: wouldn’t you? You hit home run. Now you’re launching a new venture. Do you want to stay in the sideline and not use your “popularity” to gain traction? What are you, nuts?

    The issue brought up by Drama 2.0 of getting involved in several projects is another matter, and I can’t disagree with D 2.0, even though I’ve been in those shoes as well.

74. Phillip P
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 6:34 pm

    Interesting.

75. Drama 2.0
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 6:36 pm

    RBA: the world definitely works this way, and it would be naive to expect otherwise, but the problem is that many of the people we’re talking about haven’t ever hit a *real* home run. I consider building a business that generates cold, hard cash (whether through operations or an exit) to be a home run. Web 2.0 stars like Kevin Rose are sitting on startups that don’t generate much money at all through operations and that are subjectively given exorbitant valuations by the very venture capitalists who have a vested interest in them. That’s not a home run, especially when you consider that potential suitors have passed on the opportunity to acquire some of these startups. What does that say?

    Digg might be popular, and maybe Kevin Rose will eventually walk away with a nice chunk of change, but I think we need to distinguish between people who have actually achieved tangible success and those who are floating in a bubble. There are a lot of people around the world making millions of dollars a year doing things that aren’t very sexy but I’ll always take a blog post about what they’re doing to create real wealth over yet another story about a Kevin Rose.

76. Tim Madel
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 6:51 pm

    Don’t know why I’m even posting since many have preceded me with more eloquent criticisms, but this makes me wonder if web 2.0 is cresting. I see nothing new on this - I think Drama 2.0 nailed it. Let’s focus on people creating value over profitting from hype.

77. dude man
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 7:02 pm

    i love kevin rose

78. allen stern
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 7:02 pm

    Yea but let’s all remember that the Paris/Lindsay’s of the world, also really haven’t done much either.

    And I agree with Drama that Kevin Rose is floating in a bubble. But the bloggers also help to push him to that bigger bubble.

    I just reviewed each of the comments on the two posts on Digg about Pownce:
    http://www.centernetworks.com/.....is-way-out

    First, why did 2 stories get thru? Is it allowed to have multiples when it’s the founder’s new co? Also a large majority of the comments are negative towards the app and a good bit are negative towards Kevin.

79. jared
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 7:16 pm

    This is just lame…

80. randy
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 7:48 pm

    I think Kevin Rose should get a grip. Forget this silly widget, and go concentrate on helping his scripters get their Digg math right. It’s not quite there yet.

    Diggnation’s got a major problem: stagnation. Parts of Digg are about as interesting as watching grass grow. And about as predictable too! The same proclivity of headlines languish for hours on Digg’s topic ‘frontpages’, while more numerically popular stories (sometimes by a factor of 10!) often get immediately mobbed and die premature deaths buried in the upcoming queue merely because their bury threshold was reached too quickly compared to their competitors. So in this way, on Digg, time is not a constant, and impulsive and frequent diggers exploit this inequality to rule the roost and lock out any opposing views. A real travesty.

    They’ve REALLY got to put an end to all that of mobbing. I don’t know exactly how. Maybe they should make the weight of your vote inversely proportional to the number of votes cast by you since the story’s time of submission (your voting frequency). This means your next vote’s weight would inch upward (towards a limit of 1) as the seconds tick by after your previous vote. This would penalize you for being rash and impulsive.

    Or also ideally a story made popular ought to remain popular for a period, even if numerically it’s ready to be removed. This might give more folks a chance to vote on a good story before it’s vaporized by the campers. Then, once it has been culled, the ‘upcoming stories’ page really needs to be a TWO COLUMN page BY DEFAULT, with ‘latest’ on one half and ‘most popular’ on the other. Because as it stands right now, buried stories just VANISH and then never have enough time to catch up to the competition. And so in this way Digg’s bury algorithm is acting as a one-way barrier. It’s like the drunken woman staggering down the sidewalk on her way home from the bar — she’s got a 100% chance of ending up in the gutter, because even though her progress is random, the wall remains fixed to one side of her!

    And furthermore because of the cruelty of time, stories briefly popular but buried unusually quickly (mobbed) ought to receive some quantity of ‘rescue diggs’ for a period after they’ve been buried, with frequency in inverse proportion to the story’s duration on the frontpage before burial, such as (1-t)+10), and with duration based on some sort of decreasing logarithmic scale, like -10logt+1 or something. Call it Digg welfare if you want, but the place is starving for some diversity of thought.

81. william
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 8:06 pm

    All the bashing here and no one said will be a future user of prownce. But then again, just to be fair, techcrunch readers are not your average Myspace users either. So the predictive power here for whether a site will be a hit or even popular is weak. Only the rest of the 99% average users can decide.

    Again, it’s not whether or not you can build such site or come up with the idea. People said that they have build or thought of YouTube as well. But again it was the YouTube team and the 99% of the users made YouTube a hit.

82. :: r y a n ::
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 9:14 pm

    I know one of the people behind this site. He does good work. Shush up for a sec and give it a chance. I know it’s easy to talk shit about why one startup will never make it from the comfort of your cube or couch, but pause for a second. Is it really animosity that fuels your comments? Is it a matter of you wish you were the one getting coverage for something you haven’t done? Seriously think about your motives when you post. I know it’s easy to shoot off a “it will never work and screw them for trying” but really it accomplishes nothing.

    For those that are on Pownce and think it’s worth giving a shot you can find me on it as http://www.pownce.com/innocentchild/

    The rest of you that aren’t actually in a startup, doing something to truly further yourself and take a chance - you’ve got some thinking to do about how you spend your time and why you waste your time bitching about what others are doing and you aren’t.

83. dale
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 9:58 pm

    The golden boy ” Kevin rose” strikes again!! Wonderful idea!!

84. Peter Oliver
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 11:29 pm

    Just so I get it out there now… this is going to be huge. HUGE.

    A couple months back I came up with almost exactly the same idea… I even wrote up a detailed description of it and it is almost exactly like Pownce. Of course I never talked about it with anyone or shared it. I guess I’m both happy and sad to see it being done.

    Sadly, this is the second time this has happened with Krose. I tried to start up a company called GeekTV back right before Revision3 came out. Rose even joined the site but I never had the time to work on it full time haha.

    At least this confirms in my mind that my ideas are gold.

85. mossiwo
    

    June 27th, 2007 at 11:37 pm

    Very good looking site! I will need to try it out to really give a review on it.

    The Force be with you Kevin.

86. Sebastian W.
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 12:13 am

    All of a sudden dukudu.de looks like a bargain at 43,000 Euros. If the former-owners would have waited a few more days, they could have crafted a business plan for an EU wide launch, raising millions of VC money to realize the plan. If there is one thing European VCs are good at, it is investing in ideas which are originate from the US. Every EU startup with an original idea can better apply to US VCs.

    I think it is great if Kevin Rose leverages his status in pushing new or exsisting services. Even Twitter and co benefit from the increased attention on their services. I am sure Twitter and co valuations just jumped up 2 notches. More competition is good.

87. mathew johnson
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 5:05 am

    yeah, so, if i can share 700mb avi’s then i’m in

88. listikal
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 6:28 am

    Can’t really under stand why they went with something like this, but how can you not trust Kevin Rose.

89. Hot Deals
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 7:49 am

    Seems like a IM widget with extras

90. Ad
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 9:19 am

    At the end of the day - no matter how much you try to defend it, it sounds like a bunch of geeks got bored one afternoon and decided to come up with an IM that really no one needs these days. For them, it was fun afternoon of coding, and if their names were not attached to the product, it would just be another silly web 2.0 application.

91. bdb
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 9:51 am

    Can someone please tell me what IM service allows me to send 100MB (or better, 1GB) files?

    If I have to download another program, I might as well try this. So, if there is no IM service that allows this, I don’t think IM comparisons are completely correct.

    Anyone?

92. Joel Housman
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 9:58 am

    Anyone have an invite?

    My first name @ Tuzworld.com to get in touch w/ me please.

93. chroot
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 11:45 am

    What’s interesting to me is the advertising model. Sponsored links show as messages in the app for a $3 CPM. That’s a pretty good idea, but I wonder how it’ll be accepted by the user community.

94. Bert
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 11:48 am

    “Can someone please tell me what IM service allows me to send 100MB (or better, 1GB) files?”

    Google Talk. It allows more than 1GB, don’t know the limit. But it’s also faster than any other IM service.

95. KwangErn Liew
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 12:30 pm

    Surprisingly they are going with S3. I wonder how cost effective it is for such a service.

    That said, I don’t see how this is a service that he would want to keep quiet about. It doesn’t seem groundbreaking, and if he would have started to talk about it to people, he might have gotten sound advice about this venture.

    Hey, maybe he got a real good reason behind this.

    Only time will tell.

96. RemoteMethod
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 1:03 pm

    I will just pass the opportunity to say anything.

    ~Accidents lead to Patterns
    http://accidentalpatterns.blogspot.com

97. Pownce Killer
    

    June 28th, 2007 at 3:46 pm

    quick someone go buy http://www.POWNCR.com and be true web 2.0! OMG LOLZ

98. Aidan Henry
    

    June 29th, 2007 at 2:18 am

    I posted my initial thoughts on Pownce here:
    http://www.mappingtheweb.com/2.....ew-profile

    Cheers,
    Aidan
    http://www.MappingTheWeb.com

99. Chad
    

    June 29th, 2007 at 6:07 am

    Want to see POWNCE in the works?

    Go here: http://pownce.com/kevin/

    Ya… it looks pretty much like twitter… but for sharing links to things you find cool… and files.

    –Chad

100. Steve
     

     July 1st, 2007 at 11:43 pm

     The guys over at http://www.jetpacked.com are giving away a few invites to Pownce. Check out their site.

101. sriram
     

     July 3rd, 2007 at 5:00 pm

     i have some pownce invites if anyone is interested. but a constructive review would be appreciated, during the process

102. Samiq
     

     July 3rd, 2007 at 5:13 pm

     [… News around the web have given plenty of coverage including Ryan Stewart, Tech Chrunch, Mashable, Center Networks (this guys even have put up a video of it) and of course even Mr. Scoble had something to say about it. So go check them out…] ping back from Samiq Bits

103. Louie
     

     July 10th, 2007 at 11:25 am

     I`ve been watchin & readin kevin Rose`s blog plus Diggs for some time .I always like the way the man did his job.Business first.He is in the Capitains chair for one reason & one reason only.And we all know why.

104. Alex
     

     July 26th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

     So far it doesn’t seem groundbreaking but maybe when it says “Right now, there are four basic things you can send: messages, links, files, and events.” it hints at maybe some bigger plans in the future?