8.19.2007

Pownce!

In light of a post i just made on Wil Harris' blog, here is a quick blog about Pownce - oh, and this is me at Pownce. Since i'm already on the subject, here are some of my thoughts on Pownce:

If you ask me, Pownce is a pretty good idea with one big problem: its 2 or 3 years too late. If this had hit the web before Twittr or Jaiku both became large, it could have / would have been huge - but it didn't. Instead, it trailed in after the whole social networking thing had already blown up, and most of it's web-splash was because the simple fact that Kevin Rose was one of the founders, along with several other big names in the Web 2.0 community.

As things stand right now, it's still in invite-only phase, which limits the possibilities of it. On top of that is the fact that most people have already sworn loyalty to one of the other sites that offer similar services, and can't be bothered to switch over - and so far, Pownce hasn't offered any major advantages to motivate them to switch. Even with the $20 yearly pro membership, Pownce capabilities are only so-so, and hardly worth switching if you're already entrenched in one of the other sites.

Another thing that is currently working against Pownce is friending any and all strangers -- but in a sense, this is completely necessary. Without friends, Pownce is dead in the water. On the other hand, the more friends you have, the more messages you get, and the more interesting Pownce is - which has quickly turned Pownce into a big friend-whoring circle.

For the time being, i'll keep using Pownce off and on. If i had a bunch of friends using it that i wanted to share links, files or events with, i would be pretty excited, assuming there was a reason we couldn't keep a dialog through email. But as things are now, i have a bunch of strangers as "friends" so i can skim random tech conversations & news and while that can be interesting, its not nearly enough to keep me using a service consistently.

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If you came here looking for an invite, leave a comment with your email - and put it in joe @ whatever.com form if you're worried about getting spammed. I'll post a comment & edit this post if / when i run out of invites.

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