Pownce, a service that lets users send messages, files, links, and events to friends, first launched into private beta over six months ago. It was founded by Leah Culver, Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka (Rose and Burka of Digg fame).
Tonight at midnight PST Pownce leaves private beta and anyone can join. There are 150,000 or so users in the service now – users have been waitlisted so that the sole developer, Culver, could maintain site performance. The site is still run with Culver as the only full time employee.
A number of new features are also being added to the service. A new version of their desktop client has is part of the release (version 3), built on the Adobe Air platform. The new version also allows users to directly respond to messages from friends. Previously users had to go to the websites to respond, making conversations more difficult. Burka says this feature allows users to “respond freakishly fast.”
Users can now bypass the tedious process of adding new friends to yet-another-social-network. The new version allows users to import friend lists from any/all of Digg, Flickr, Twitter or Facebook. More services will be added regularly, Culver says.
A big part of Pownce is event invitations, although previously users could only view events via a mini-list embedded in the right sidebar of the site. Events are now also broken out into their own page, with public views as well as lists of a user’s events that they are holding or attending. They can then be downloaded into Google Calendar of iCal format. See last screen shot below.
The most interesting new feature is a group of lists that highlight interesting users. This isn’t just a list of top users by number of friends or number of posts, but a more editorialized list of people who might be interesting to follow. These are called “Featured Powncers” – you can see how they are highlighted in the top screen shot.
Pownce isn’t a Twitter clone, as Culver says repeatedly. To me it’s more of a Twitter “plus” (see our now-dated comparison from last July), since it incorporates file sharing and event invitations as well as simple messages. Pownce also skipped the mobile integration that Twitter is focused on. So they clearly aren’t a clone – but the real question is whether users will be likely to choose just one, or use both. My guess is the vast majority of users will only want to be on one of the platforms.
Pownce is still a distant second to Twitter in terms of traffic, but given that they were in private beta the comparison wasn’t entirely fair (the number of users was highly regulated). The real question is whether users flock to the service starting tomorrow, when the gates are open to all. And remember that Pownce, with a tiny burn rate, doesn’t need to hit Facebook-like numbers, or even a fraction of that, to be a success. They can grow at their own pace. Who knows, they may be here long after many of today’s “hot” startups are a distant memory.
Wow, a way to send stuff to my friends!! Because email just doesn’t cut it anymore.
About time it opened up. I cannot remember last time I Pownced
Still can’t get updates through IM? Lame. If it wants to be Twitter “plus”, it needs to do everything Twitter does and all those other features they bring up.
Why do they spend this wasted time on this AIR platform for their desktop application when everything else seems to be leaning towards mobile computing?
mike – where are these screens inside pownce? i can’t find them.
I’ve been a “member” for a while and find it completely useless.
I can’t give away my pownce invites. Are there really people out there who want to use pownce and can’t? I don’t expect a big rush.
The features listed on the screenshots remind me of Tumblr. It’ll be interesting to see later on tonight.
wow – now i can get my Facebook account cut off – Like Scoble. Really – Import Facebook friends? Lets all support and try to built dataportability…….
I wonder what Scoble will make of the new feature that “…allows users to import friend lists from any/all of Digg, Flickr, Twitter or Facebook.” Better yet, I’m curious to know what happens when users with >5000 friends try to import them into Pownce. Regardless, its great to see Pownce opening up to the masses, although like Nacho, I also can’t remember the last time I Pownced. Guess I’ll have to check it out now!
I think it’s crazy cool how much Leah built herself. Kudos!
Tony it’s not rocket science when you’re using a framework. Especially when you’re just copying other ideas, and the interface/design is done by someone else.
@ Jason #11
Please post a link to your web app.
I saw this and thought “Meh”
Then I saw the words “Kevin Rose” and “Daniel Burka” and was like “W0W OmGz!!1!!!”.
No.
But seriously, its a product of Kevin and Daniel’s. I have to at least give it a try.
@8 and @9, the “getFriends” function is part of the facebook API. They’re just going to do a one-time match of your friends against existing pownce users.
Side note, what the hell is the point of Pownce? Doesn’t look like anything you couldn’t do in Facebook.
Pownce is a great tool for meeting people and creating micro-discussions. File share, user sets, calendar events, images, and video are just icing on the cake.
A majority of Twitter posts is used for live blogging bowel movements, and choices of lunch meat.
There is a clear cut difference between the intellect of the users of both systems.
Yeah K. Rose Im sure inspired others like myself to startup.
I didnt see him at the party on friday.. i would have said thanks
I really doubt users will flock to Pownce in any kind of mass exodus. Twitter still rocks. Jaiku offers more features, and Tumblr rocks as well.
“And remember that Pownce, with a tiny burn rate, doesn’t need to hit Facebook-like numbers, or even a fraction of that, to be a success.”
Define “success”?
I take your mentioning of burn rate to imply that success == revenue or profitability? I don’t really see much scope here for revenue generation yet. You have a bunch of people adding random snippets of text – there isn’t much flab to grab onto for contextual advertising to really work. It’s not like Facebook where user’s profiles are way more deeply defined and advertisers can target people as granularly as they want to.
That and, the moment they stick ads in the streams there are good alternatives out there that don’t (twitter et al).
Or perhaps advertising revenue isn’t the business strategy behind pownce? Whatever it is, I’m having trouble seeing it. Looks like just another “cool web 2.0 app, please buy me google” to me.
/jaded
low burn rate can mean their return can be substantial in terms of percentage, but not in total price.
It mightn’t be a Twitter clone, but if the service is stable, it might just become a Twitter replacement.
I have been using Pownce for awhile now. I dig it. Hope to see everyone there tonight.
Twitter and this Pownce services are ridiculous. Who cares about this stuff except losers dying for attention. lulz.
I signed up for pownce and was not impressed at all with it. I can not remember the last time I used it, I think I even uninstalled the desktop client.
I also think that if this wasn’t backed by “the cool kids” and was developed by some no-namers that pownce would get a harsh review.
Pownce is Twitter with spamtachments. Meh! doesn’t even begin to express the disdain with which the gainfully employed will regard this new black hole for productivity.
Pownce may not be a twitter clone, but what about a Tumblr clone? Seems like there are quite a few of these micro browsing site. Then need to become more vertically oriented.
I hope they get a lot of users. I find Pownce pretty useful, and if more of my friends used it, I would log into Facebook less.
@Steve
Pownce is “stable” because it doesn’t have the user base of Twitter. If it had half the user base it would crumble.
Everybody doing the same thing…
The main issue I have with Pownce is that I already use Twitter and there is not enough incentive for me to give up Twitter in favor of Pownce. And no, I would not use both. I think Pownce is designed beautifully, but has taken far too long to open up.
http://www.leveragingideas.com
It’s not already public? Wow.
Is’t Pownce like facebook that you can send messages to friends? What’s the defferent between them?
As a internet marketer I can see Pownce becoming huge for performers and venues. Sign me up..
Pownce cant go to the death pool soon enough. Neutered Twitter clone with only developers names keeping it alive.
Sure … after I went through the whole beta thing
Must be PST – No sign of ‘Open for Marketing Animals’ yet, here in the east.
I’m disappointed. I thought it would be something adding real value for users rather than something for kids, or child like adults.
It almost looks like a dummied-down version of Facebook…
Cheers,
Aidan
http://www.MappingTheWeb.com
I like how it has a sole developer. Any other company starting up Pownce would have at the very least 5 developers by now, and a CTO. Just goes to show how ridiculously run most web startups are – these guys at least have their heads on screwed on straight.
Should someone edit out Leah’s address from that last screenshot? It’s filed under a public event, but still…
It’s great for going public about this services.
I think pownce is good services.
But, unfortunately, current private beta version can’t post CJKV character set.
# Most of my friend use Japanese language.
So, I wish this service will be able to use non-european language.
really? Pownce still can’t post in Japanese.
Twitter is developping Japanese Version, and now can post in Japanese.
I’m Japanese in Japan, and have many Japanese friends. Many Japanese will keep to enjoy on twitter.
the long wait is finally over. i have been powncing for a long time now and i really enjoy it. the members are very friendly and supportive. they almost answer to all your queries. a good social networking site to get connected.
last invitations for pownce, before they go public.
who wants some?
Just stick pownce in the dead pool already… it is completely useless.
First! Oh wait, I thought this was perezhilton.com. My bad. In that case, um… LINE!
Excellent features. Great service. Just not needed and the community is there. Hats off to Leah, she’s a doll. But sadly Pownce will not recover.
I’ve tried to sign up several times and have gotten error messages. Anyone else experiencing this?
It will be interesting to see how this Django site scales.
Pownce’s over complexity is going to take it down. Twitter’s interface is so simple, clean, and friendly that you can’t help but love it. Twitter is to Apple as Pownce is to Microsoft.
http://www.that...212;a-quic.html
I was going to sign up but even the people who use it say it’s rubbish by accounts of these comments. Oh well. At least I only wasted a few minutes rather than hours. Thanks for the comments. Long die Pounce.
Dang is this site slow! account deleted.