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Is Pownce Developing A MP3 Player?
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.
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Pownce to Release More Complete API this Friday
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.
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Pownce Opens To Public Tonight At Midnight; Early Screen Shots Of New Features
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.
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Is Pownce Going To The DeadPool?
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.
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Better Late Than Never: Pownce Gets A Public API
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.
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Does Digg Want To Be Facebook?
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.
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Pownce Offers New Features, Still No API
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.
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