Monday 2 July 2007

Are You Powncing?

Well, this is my inevitable post about the new social network Pownce. As many of you may know, I'm quite a big fan of Twitter. I've avoided using Jaiku for some reason, but I seem to have dived straight into Pownce.

I've only been using if since Sunday, and I like it so far. I'm not sure how much I'll use it yet (social media overload and all that), but as a social networking tool, it seems to be off to a flying start. It's very easy to build up Pownce friends – I woke up this morning with a bunch of new invites from interesting people (quite a few were from Twitter mind you).

On Pownce you can send files, messages, links and events. You are able to communicate through the site or via a desktop application. Unlike Twitter, at the moment there is no SMS fuctionality, but I dare say that might be added in time. There is already a Pownce Facebook application.

Apparently Pownce was conceived by Leah Culver, Daniel Burka, Kevin Rose (founder of digg) and Shawn Allen, in that order according to the site.

Like Gmail and Joost before it, Pownce is cunningly working on an invite-only system at the moment, which has created a bit of mystery and an I don't want to be left out mentality amongst social media junkies. People want what they can't have.

Oh, and If you are looking for an invite, sorry, I don't have any left. When you are invited to join, you get 6 invites to give others. I asked my Twitter friends if anyone had one to give me and was inundated with invites. In turn, I gave mine away on a first–come–first–served basis on Twitter.

It's not surprising that invitations are currently spreading like wildfire though online social media channels - everyone seems to be talking about it and asking for invites.

Are you using Pownce already? If you are, what do you think of it so far. How does it compare to Twitter or Jaiku for you? If you want an invite and are not sure how to get one, I suggest you leave comments on a few blogs and ask around. Do a search and follow the trial, invites are not that difficult to come by.

4 comments:

kelly said...

I got my pownce invite today and signed up. Now building my community and network. I only found value with twitter once I had the network built up and expect the same here.

Wondering what the differentiator will be ... the ability to group contacts?

Anyway, it's fun and new and shiny, and this social software addict is quite happy. :-)

Anonymous said...

Just got into it today; even made an obligatory blog post about it too. It's actually looking pretty slick so far, I think - and invites do seem to be spreading like wildfire, I'm noticing most of my Twitter network is there already. Guess only time will tell huh?

Anonymous said...

Hello John!

I still didn't have time to search for invites, but Pownce sounds great.
The first thing I thought after I realized that was possible to sent links, files, and events..was "does this work with sms too?". Not yet as you said...
Will it replace Twitter by using also an sms functionality? I don't know, but it's going to be a very interesting tool!
Ok now I go and search for some invites!

Andrea

jj said...

Thanks for the comments.

I agree that there is more value in Twitter when a good network has been built-up. As my network has grown, I've found it to be more and more useful. Having immediate access to many minds is a powerful thing.

Chisa, I've noticed that a lot of my Twitter friends are now using Pownce as well. I wonder if people will continue to use both. I guess time will tell.