Daniel Burka, co-founder and head designer for Pownce, has generated some buzz by posting a screenshot teaser of an upcoming release (shown above).

From what we can see in the shot - a search box, an upload link, and parts of the words “Artist” and “Playlist” - it appears to be some sort of browser-based music player.

Just a couple days ago Pownce started allowing users to post files to the general public, not just their Pownce friends. The micro-blogging format, however, only allows one file to be posted at a time, although these individual files can be played back in a simple Flash player.

This new player might allow users to upload batches of audio files and share them with friends as mixtapes, which would put the service in competition with sites like Muxtape, Mixwit, Mixaloo, and Imeem.

Seen more broadly and in light of recent lifts in file size limits, this could be a sign that Pownce is trying to differentiate itself from Twitter by heading further in the file sharing direction, as suggested by Duncan Riley just the other day. It seems as though Pownce’s already-vague “send stuff to your friends” tagline isn’t broad enough after all.

Thanks Ryan for the tip.

Leah Culver, the lead programmer of Pownce, has informed us that the messaging/social networking service will release a more complete API this Friday, one with substantial improvements over the first version released late last October.

This second version will include the ability to post notes and replies, fetch private and friends-only notes (in addition to public messages and user information), and upload and download files. OAuth support will also be rolled out, allowing users to protect their Pownce data when using API-based services. Services built on the API will be publishable in a Pownce directory where users can find them more easily.

Culver says that API 2.0 is powerful enough that developers could recreate the official Pownce AIR client if they were so inclined. Pownce is already speaking with several partners who have shown an interest in using the new API, including Flock who plans to integrate Pownce into its people sidebar so you can see friends’ messages and post messages while browsing.

SocialThing! and Mahalo also plan to use Pownce’s new API. SocialThing!, a social activity aggregator launching this March, will feature the ability to send messages to friends on Pownce in addition to other sites such as Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us, and YouTube. Mahalo currently relies on a hack to allow website sharing to Pownce through its Share Firefox toolbar; access to this new API will replace that hack.

Culver will be at FOWA Miami this Friday to officially launch the new API. She’ll be speaking there about websites as services and the importance of solid APIs.

FON (better known for building a WiFi community) launched Twitxr today through their FON Labs group. Basically, it’s Twitter but allows picture uploads when sending a message (which makes it particularly useful for camera phones). FON founder Martin Varsavsky announced the product on his blog.

So, yeah, basically it’s a photoblog. You can easily set it up to automatically send your messages to Twitter and Facebook too, though, which is useful. My Twitxr account is here. Here’s an example of a message that was copied over to Twitter. Another feature I like is the fact that you tell it where you are, so location information is included.

Varsavsky says it’s specially designed for the iPhone, and they’ve created software that makes uploading text and a photo from the iPhone very easy. As a third party application, though, it isn’t officially available for the iPhone. You have to “jailbreak” the phone before you can install their application. It looks like you can’t simply grab a photo that you’ve taken normally from the iPhone, either. You have to initiate the photo through the Twitxr application. The application automatically adds location information to your photos and updates.

Twitxr is the upteenth variation of Twitter to appear (see Jaiku (acquired by Google), Pownce, etc. One clone has even gone to the deadpool. This isn’t even the first Twitter-variation to include photos - see Zannel . This is something Dave Winer has been working on with his FlickrtoTwitter project as well - which sends links of your new Flickr photos to your Twitter account. And photoblogging is nothing new. So as pretty as Twitxr is, perhaps FON should stick to wifi.

Update: I’m actually going to re-jailbreak my iphone to test the software - the fact that uploading is so easy and it adds location information is worth noting. If it works really well, this could actually be a reason for me to stop posting directly to Twitter.

Automattic has released Prologue, a Twitter style service for groups that is also being pitched as a distributed Twitter.

According to Automattic’s founder Matt Mullenweg, the new service is way for users to share short messages with a corporate structure, or with private messaging between different groups. Mullenweg says that although it’s not initially aimed at becoming a distributed Twitter, they are offering the template on an open source basis and that if people want to hack it for this purpose, “you’re welcome to.”

The concept of a distributed Twitter has been discussed in certain circles for the better part of the last year. The concept is to decentralize a short message service, therefore overcoming the constant issues Twitter has with service provision, or in simple terms, many people host the service across many servers, and they all talk to one and other.

Allen Stern at Centernetworks says that “With Wordpress the dominant player in blogging, this could be a game changer.” Nah. It’s a reasonable enough idea, but the key to Twitter’s success has been three fold. One is its sheer volume of users that has seen it defeat competitors such as Jaiku by providing the most active and rich user base. Secondly although the centralized service is a weakness, it’s also a strength because when you connect to others on Twitter, you connect to others on Twitter. No working out whether the server they’re on is up-to-date, live or even compatible, it just works (when it’s not down, or “temporarily overloaded”). Third is the open access to Twitter via third party tools; just ask Leah Culver from Pownce (who’s not one of my fans) about why open access is vital in building something like this. Prologue may provide some open access, but its distributed nature will mean that ultimately it will be a niche product; possibly a good niche product, but it’s not going to knock the Twitter bird off its perch any time soon.

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.

Uncov has a very funny post on the demise of Kevin-Rose-founded-Twitter-clone Pownce, noting that their traffic seems to have fallen to the point that “Even TechCrunch can’t save you now.” The image above is taken from their post.

That may or may not be true, but when you look at Pownce v. Twitter on Compete.com, the difference doesn’t look quite so brutal. Still, there is probably only room for one Twitter in this world, and Twitter itself seems determined to hang in there.

Pownce, previously a one-person shop (developer Leah Culver), has started to hire people and is looking for office space. We’ve also heard Culver doesn’t like Pownce being called a Twitter-clone. But the shoe fits quite nicely in this case, and the clone moniker stands. Sure, there are differences. But it isn’t different enough.

The Kevin Rose/ Leah Culver Twitter meets file sharing network Pownce has finally launched a public API, 3 months after first announcing that an API was coming.

Pownce launched in late June to a surge of interest based around the involvment of the ever-popular Kevin Rose (Digg, Revision3), however the popularity has not lasted. Both Compete and Alexa show big drops in traffic from Pownce as users have abandoned the platform, Alexa showing a remarkable 80% drop in traffic. The Pownce AIR client was buggy at launch and the lack of an open API has meant that whilst Twitter continues to grow with the assistance of an ever increasing range of third party apps, Pownce has actually gone backwards.

Culver and Rose will be hoping that the interest in Pownce hasn’t declined to a state where 3rd party developers will not be interested in building for Pownce: it’s really the only thing the platform might have left to arrest its continued slide of user interest.

When Twitter-clone Yappd launched two months ago, we wrote “Here’s a me-too service that won’t last long” and “yet another hopeful young gun enters the space with little to differentiate itself except the addition of a photo to your status messages.” We may not always be right, but this time it was sort of obvious - the world doesn’t need yet another me-too service like Twitter.

Today Yappd announced that it was being acquired and the service will be shut down on November 5. Welcome to the TechCrunch Deadpool, Yappd. We hardly knew you.

That leaves Twitter, Pownce and the recently acquired (by Google) Jaiku left in the ring.

BREAKING NEWS: Jaiku, the Twitter (and Pownce)-like service from Finland, has been bought by Google.

Jaiku Founders Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen today posted this on their homepage:

“While it’s too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. But fear not, all our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will be able to invite your friends to Jaiku.”

The terms of the acquisition have not been released.

This is a fascinating move by Google which would have looked at Twitter prior to this acquisition, and Twitter’s recent $5 million series A funding last July.

There will be inevitable comparison’s with Google’s acquisition of Dodgeball, which largely came to nothing, but it would appear that the time for social networking and blogging via mobile has come. Google’s ability to add scale and marketing muscle to Jaiku should be putting Twitter on the back-foot right now.

More coverage on TechCrunch UK.

I’ve speculated previously on the growing conflict Kevin Rose has between his roles at Digg and Pownce, and now it would appear that we may finally be on the eve of Rose being forced to decide between the two.

Leah Culver, a co-founder of Pownce with Rose has made a bizarre post to Digg suggesting that Digg’s new features were a direct copy of those from Pownce:

Since I originally came up with the Pownce gender list, I’m somewhat miffed that Digg copied Pownce.

Culver also linked to an image on Flickr which she subsequently deleted.

The first and most obvious question: has there been a complete break down in communications and trust between Pownce’s founders that they now find it necessary to air their dirty laundry (ironically) on Digg? Second: why did Culver delete the picture after posting the link on Digg? Was pressure brought to bare?

As much as we all admire Kevin Rose’s tenacity and creativity, there is always a point where you can be wearing too many hats. Rose has three (Digg, Rev3, Pownce), which I’m guessing is at least one too many, possibly two.

Digg is to offer new features today that will provide social networking functionality akin to Facebook and MySpace.

Digg users will now have full profile pages that allow them to connect to friends and share stories that may other wise not hit the main page of Digg.

Digg users will also be able to chat with one and other, and leave messages on user profiles; a similar feature to the Facebook wall.

The news has met with mixed reactions by Digg users, with some suggesting a name change to “Diggspace” may be coming. The group story sharing feature was noted with this comment:

The best part is that if you decide to use any of these new features and spread stories you’re into around to all your friends, you’ll get banned for gaming the system. Great idea!

Notably, the new link sharing features put Digg into competition with Kevin Rose’s other startup: Pownce. It will be interesting to see how Digg builds the features out given the obvious conflict building between the two.

Update: Kevin Rose has now posted to the Digg blog with the changes, demo video as below

Rose also said that Digg was moving towards offering new features in the future including:
* Digg Images: A dedicated images section (with thumbnails). Still on track to launch in late October.
* Revamped Comments: No more ajax loads, new clean and lightweight design (similar to the old comment system).
* Digg Alerts: Alerts will give you the ability to create customized email alerts - when a story becomes popular, summaries of popular stories on specific topics, and when your friends recommend stories.
* Story Suggest: Dozens of servers crunch the math to provide you with real-time recommendations (stories and friends) based on what you’ve dugg in the past.

Kevin Rose’s microblogging startup Pownce has announced a number of new user focused features.

New features include incoming event notifications, inline video playback, the ability to display social networking links and new preference settings.

Notably though, the additional features are focused on those interacting with Pownce via the web, not the Pownce AIR client. Of course it would be possible for a third party desktop application designer to create a client that utilized these additional features…if only Pownce ever got around to offering an open API; the last we heard of that was July.

The minority of people who use microblogging tools directly from a web page should enjoy the new features.

TwitKu is a new site that is sort of a Meebo (web instant messaging) for the Twitter and Jaiku “presence blogging” services.

The site brings your Twitter and Jaiku accounts onto one screen and adds a posting interface that allows you to post just to one of the services, or to both. The benefit for many people that use both services religiously is obvious. Very simple and very useful for some people.

Both Twitter and Jaiku have APIs, making this possible (or at least manageable). Clones/similar products like Pownce and the new Yappd don’t have APIs. When and if those services release them, I’d expect TwitKu to quickly add those services as well. And that would save those of us who want to use all of the services but refuse to choose a lot of time.

And since Twitter and Jaiku are all about presence and status updates of friends, there’s no reason not to add Facebook status right away, too.

Here’s a me-too service that won’t last long. Yappd, a Twitter clone, launched today. In their email to us they describe themselves as “Twitter with picture messaging,” and that pretty much sums it up. It is a service that allows you to quickly tell the world what you are up to. You can add content via their website, email or sms.

So while we debate whether Kevin Rose’s Pownce, another recent entrant to this space, is different enough from Twitter to become successful, yet another hopeful young gun enters the space with little to differentiate itself except the addition of a photo to your status messages.

Unless Yappd has a brilliant marketing strategy up their sleeve, I don’t expect them to get much traction. I do like the photo feature, though. Hopefully Twitter will add it soon.

My Yappd account is here. Don’t even think about adding me.

Pownce has announced the launch of a group that will work towards the implementation of a public Pownce API.

As Pownce puts it so well on their blog “the lack of an API has been a major criticism levelled against Pownce from day one.” Desktop interaction is Pownce’s Achilles heal; the Pownce Desktop AIR client has been defective from day one. An open API will allow third party developers to create new and improved desktop clients, browser add-ons and any other interface they feel like, as many already have for Twitter.

Apparently though, it’s not as simple as simply providing a public API; the public part of the Pownce API requires consultation, design, development, more consultation, and last but not least a “community review” with a potential release date of September. All good things comes to those who wait, but the longer Pownce waits to release a public API, the bigger the risk that the mostly positive momentum behind the application will wither away.

Proving that everything has a market, invites to Kevin Rose’s P2P service Pownce are up for sale on eBay.

Bidding on Pownce invites start at 1c with buy it now prices at $5.

It wasn’t that long ago when Gmail invites were available for sale on eBay, although I’d suggest there is a world of difference between the wildly innovative email platform (at the time) and a P2P platform such as Pownce. The question then becomes, for those desperate for an invite: Yes or No, Thank You; the exact options on the error message Pownce Desktop Client users get to see at least a dozen times a day.

(via Paris Lemon, image credit LOLcats)

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.