So I’ve had a week now to play around with Pownce, Kevin Rose’s (the founder of Digg, pictured left) newly launched Twitter killer.
Twitter, which launched a year ago, was obviously used as the initial inspiration for the Pownce. They both allow users to sign up, add friends, and broadcast quick notes to people. The main differences: Twitter is mobile-ready, allowing users to receive friend requests and new messages via text message. And Pownce gives users more flexibility in communicating by allowing messages just to friends. Pownce also allows different kinds of messages – file transfers, events, links and plain text messages (Twitter allows text and links only). There’s no reason, though, that users will use both. They’ll go with one or the other, or neither.
So is Pownce good enough to beat Twitter?
The early adopter crowd is going to be torn on this one. (Just about) everyone loves Kevin Rose, and anything he launches is going to get serious attention – on Digg, tech blogs and mainstream press. But a lot of people like Twitter, too, and that application has already reached the “network effect” stage of its business cycle. It continues to grow fast. And Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter (and Odeo and Blogger), is also well liked in Silicon Valley.
A breakdown of the basic features is in the chart to the right. Pownce also provides a few other bells and whistles not included in the chart. For example, it lets you forward a message to others (and also allows you to exclude those that have already received it). And they also give basic stats on messages, like how many people have received it. Pownce has an AIR desktop application, although there are similar apps for Twitter, too. Another thing to consider that’s not on the chart – Twitter has had, and continues to have, massive performance issues. It is slow or down way too often.
Services like Twitter and Pownce (and there are others, too – Jaiku, Kyte and many more) are highly viral and benefit from the network effect. People want to join the service that all of their friends already use, and so each new user adds value to the network as a whole. By that measure, Twitter is far ahead of Pownce.
Frankly, unless you really like the mobile aspect of Twitter, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two services. I expect Twitter will add most of the Pownce features in the short term anyway. And many of the unique features of Pownce – like file sharing, group messaging, etc., are handled pretty well already by…email. Gmail, for example, lets users send files of up to 20 MB. Pownce lets you send up to 10 MB files, unless you pay for a pro account (then the limit is 100 MB). And email is certainly very useful for private and group messaging.
People use Twitter to quickly tell the world (or at least the people who care) what they are up to and what they are looking at on the web. Like blogging, it’s a one-to-many application that works very well. Twitter does that perfectly, and does little else. Pownce does it, too, but all the other features are really just distractions.
Pownce also does something that I find highly annoying. By default, you receive an email message every time you get a new friend or receive any sort of message. My inbox quickly filled up with dozens of emails telling me I had a message. But to read the message I have to click on a link and go to the service. The only reason for that is to generate page views. It’s easy to turn the notifications off, but most new users will start to get a lot of email clogging their inbox. Not a good way to start things off.
I just signed up for Pownce, so I don’t have much to say yet, but one thing I do like is the group messaging. I’ll be sticking with Twitter for now.
Btw, its down now :\ It was on Digg, so theres probably some mass registering going on.
whats stopping twitter from stealing all of these “new” ideas and implementing them in their service?
mike, few points:
- pownce seems very similar to twitter, to a point where pownce shouldn’t mind twitter taking a few features from them
.
-twitter moblie is highly used, and will be missed in pownce, but no doubt kevin and his crew are working on it as i speak.
-definitley agree with the last paragraph.
I dont use either service, but if i had to give the nod to one at this stage it would be twitter because of their position and their ability to incorporate any “new” features from Pownce.
There really isn’t a fantastic, free way to send medium/big files to people yet.
Email has a great interface, however it’s not good for large files, especially for the recipient if they have a slow connection.
Skype and other chat apps are great, but don’t always work full speed or at all behind firewalls, and they have to be running. Plus not everyone has the same client.
File sharing websites are pretty crap unless you pay. Prownce 10MB limit for free is useless as mentioned, might as well use email. The default file upload capabilities of a web browser are abysmal.
Torrents are way too complicated.
Probably the best way is to upload to a web server somewhere via FTP, and send a link to download which is way beyond a non-savvy user.
Any other ideas?
http://bla.st/web-2.0/
Mike – I have to disagree with this statement:
Frankly, unless you really like the mobile aspect of Twitter, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two services.
The whole messaging system is completely different. Pownce handles replies correctly and Twitter does not. That is a huge plus for Pownce in my opinion. But I agree that eventually Twitter will do the same thing.
Tim there are plenty of file services out there.
Evan Williams. Like the whiskey? lol
In the beginning everyone had all these great ideas for Twitter… that are all now integrated very well into Pownce. They seem stuck in this perpetual dev cycle.
For me less is more, go Twitter.
So how does pownce compare to twitter AND jaiku? Would be great to see a similar table.
@ Tim, re: file sharing, try http://www.pando.com – awesome service.
One thing that Pownce does that doesn’t make much sense to me is putting my friends’ posts on my page. Instead of just having my thoughts on my home page, it has my thoughts intermingled with my friends’ totally unrelated posts. As a result, my page contains pretty much the same posts as all of my friends’ pages…
honestly, i don’t think twitter and pownce are all that comparable. you go to twitter if you want to post text messages to a blog. you go to pownce if you want to blog, but in a more controlled fashion. no one is claiming that pownce is a “twitter killer”, except for michael arrington, because that’s not what pownce is aiming for.
My money’s on Twitter. Pownce sucks and requires a runtime. Ugh.
Twitter has the APIs and plug-ins (of course, it’s older). I can post to my blog and facebook via twitter. I can post to twitter via google reader, my blog, and other tools.
Pownce has a great private conversation tool. It also has unlimited words.
They are different tools. I don’t post the same things to the two accounts.
WHY DOES EVERYONE AT TECHCRUNCH HAVE TO THINK IN TERMS OF “THIS SITE KILLER” AND “THAT SITE KILLER”? WHY CAN’T ALL WEBSITES JUST CO-EXIST IN HARMONY?
I don’t and probably won’t need to use either, but pownce looks more cute
twitter design is not.. much.. you know.. kind of.. blaa
mr. arrington likes to create drama.
“The only reason for that is to generate page views”
Yes, agree.
Yet, I like it when services put the user experience first.
Ryze does the same thing , LinkedIn too, and so on. WTF is the point of sending you an email telling you “XYZ has sent you a message. Click here to read it”. Just send me the damn message and be done with it!! If you’re extra nice, you should even let me reply to the message by email too.
But that would be terrible for page views, and we all want to look cook in the picture, don’t we?
I like Twitter best. It’s more user-friendly and cuter to look at. I plan on sticking to what I know best. It’s common sense. I love Twitter and how it reminds me of a bird that goes “twit twit.” That’s the attraction of it. It’s like catching a cute bird and playing with it, whereas pownce is more like a mean tiger that will scare the user.
http://www.face...k.com/home.php?
http://twitter.com/
http://news.myspace.com/
http://pownce.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/
more importantly, where/how does the iphone fit into all of this…
The way I see it, the Internet has brought on a new wave of social/professional behaviors that encourages people to stay “connected.” Now with apps like Twitter and Pownce, people are more willing to not just connect, but push out information to feel more connected. It’s like suddenly realizing that a one-way street is now a two-way street. Facebook does this pretty well with their “status” feature. I’d really like to see how Twitter and Pownce’s business models evolve.
Ultimately, this is another way to consume information which just adds to the information overload that many people have to deal with.
Pownce needs mobile and/or IM before I’d use it. At the moment it only looks nice. No way I’m using another standalone desktop communications app (which makes email notifications useful, even if they drive you back to the site).
Pownce has potential with its different message types, but really why not just write an event name and date in a twitter message unless it has some deeper integration (such as with calendars and events sites)? Likewise filesharing, you can just upload your file to senduit and then send that URL via Twitter. As noted Pownce has got a better grip on threading and privacy. Both would be nice with video messaging like Facebook or Hictu.
The random mention of Jaiku by way of comparison is a little unfair to them, it has really deep integration with your mobile and functions as an aggregator which none of the others do. Thus you could use it with both Twitter and Hictu to get the best of those respective services, although there’s not much distinction amongst the different imported feeds.
Right now Pownce is a demonstration, more than a finished product.
Check out http://www.jetpacked.com for some Pownce invites.
I dunno. I’m not convinced. Pownce isn’t a Twitter killer. While it’s similar, it’s really something different.
What we’re starting to see, and which I think might be interesting for you to cover, is how we’re actually moving in to a period where most features are becoming commodity (social networking, file sending, posting presence, etc, etc). As I’ve said for some time, implementation is 9/10s of the law.
Rather than looking at features (which isn’t interesting IMO), you should really be looking at implementation and how these apps *feel* to use. I mean, this is the difference between Playstation, Nintendo and Xbox… they all offer games from the same genres, but it’s the small consistent nuances of their implementations that make the difference.
Consider that Facebook, Zooomr, Plazes, Jaiku, Twitter and now Pownce all allow you to post
So, when will Twitter start integrating so everyone doesn’t have to make competitors? Twitter functionality in facebook. Jaiku came out like Twitter PRO. Now Pownce.
Of course, none of this matters. The fun part about social media space is that it’s high school all over again. Popularity, cool kids, cheerleaders and the quad.
Doesn’t this article being personality vs. personality prove that? Who’s behind Jaiku? Someone in *Finland* or where ever.
At anyrate, it’s the new shiny for the week. Something to do while iPhones get activated.
who cares?
For those of us on (and enjoying) Facebook, can someone explain how Twitter or Pownce might be useful?
Oh, and I agree with #15… enough, already, with the asinine killer this and killer that and this vs. that and so on. Constant zero-sum thinking is for those, well, without much thinking capacity. Or those striving to increase page views
If you took the status update thingy in FB and made it its own site; or if you took iChat/Skype/etc status things and made them standalone, that’s kind of what these presence apps are about. Problem with some is that they weren’t designed for conversation (Twitter) and Jaiku and Pownce help that by threading a conversation, as well as sending messages to a group, without the official formation of a group.
I wanted Facebook to be a replacement but it seems it’s settling into my workflow as an smart address book with a little organic activity under the hood.
Also, Jaiku brings RSS feeds inline with your status.
Anyway, that’s my .02. It’s a different thing, with lots of similarities and no two are alike– and geeks will line-by-line compare and say one sucks or is awesome because X, ergo it’s gospel.
Heh, I love this space.
Hi Michael,
“Pownce does it, too, but all the other features are really just distractions.”
I’ve just the other day wrote a post on single-purpose applications, and their beneficial simplicity. If anyone cares to read it’s at:
http://blog.mat...e-purpose-apps/
I’ve also just joined Pownce yesterday. I love the AIR application, but unfortunately it seems I cannot reply to messages through it. Whilst I agree on principle that Pownce’s additional features are distractions, file transfer is quite useful and couldn’t be done in a text-based message (whereas ‘link’ and ‘event’ could really be).
Best,
Matt
Pownce & Twitter both are useless. Some blogger are using Twitter to boost their self egos, as if the world evolves around them. Get a life guys!
Although, give credit to Twitter for being the first.
@29 Yeah, gotta give credit to Google being the first, too.
Oh, wait.
10 reasons why Pounce rocks, lets solve this once and for all!
http://frostfir...hy-pounce-rocks
Mike
would you mind expanding this comparison or at least the table to have email and IM also..There is no question these are nice-smart kids but by comparing these solutions it might seem as if there is really pressing problem that these solutions are addressing..
Let’s see. Twitter does have SMS – which never really work reliable over here and drain out the battery of the mobile. When I was in the States, my prepaid even refused to even get SMS or send them.
Mobile? I use mobile twitter with the web page for reduced traffic. Give me something like that and I am satisfied.
No big difference? Typical monolingual, and mono country view.
Please show me how I can have one account in twitter and separate messages by languages. Groups is not so much about really grouping for me, but reducing the clutter for some people. You do not want me engaging in German in your twitter account. Managing two accounts in two browsers is a hassle.
So far I am fine with pownce being this in beta. It has a lot of promising things in there and for a beta it is well thought out. Especially on the business side.
Now, give me some extras and I happily pay the 20 bucks per year. And that is what it is about: It looks expandable and with a strategy.
Am I missing things? Hell yeah. There are a lot of things missing or need revamping in the sense of user interface. But it is promising to be good – and with it coming from the maker of Digg, I expect them to understand how to deal with load …
Evan’s a tool. I’d go with Pounce for that reason alone.
Pownce is no more a Twitter killer than the new Netscape was a Digg killer. I feel Pownce has potential, but it’s a bit too limited in its functionality at the moment, and it’s not mobile. I have to get into the app to see what’s new. Jaiku and the new groups feature is more intriguing to me at the moment. And, if I need to send files, Yousendit does a pretty good job for up to 100MB when gmail can’t handle the job.
Although very difficult to keep track of, I’m starting to add some of the more interesting reviews of Pownce.
Check out what people are saying about it, I’ve lumped them into favorable, indifferent and unfavorable.
I put you as “on the fence” still.
http://www.web-...pownce-reviews/
Pownce is a waste of bandwidth. Why should you pay for a glorified FTP client? Oh, maybe because it offers instant messaging, that’s why it’s cool…
Nice review. Classic Mike.
Both of their services suck
Why not just use Gmail? I haven’t heard anything about Pownce that sounds unique or compelling to use.
Thanks for the review…very interesting.
I don’t see Pownce losing this one. The rapid growth of the community is obvious. And there are no platform dependencies, like some are saying. Pownce AIR is optional. It’s web based just like Twitter and the opening of an API is inevitable. It’s the people that make up the community that determine it’s success, with usability being a secondary concern. Pownce could be triumphant. Ultimately, there’s room for both regardless.
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