I got this e-mail (see below) from Pownce. It’s not going to make me start using Pownce (although I do have an account) but it did strike me that Pownce has some cool features – and a business model – that Twitter could use.
In an ideal world, Twitter should use some of it VC dough to buy Pownce so it could get access to all this stuff OR Pownce should ask co-founder Kevin Rose for a loan so it can buy Twitter to acquire Twitter’s users and cache.
Either way, the combined company should keep the Twitter brand and ditch Pownce.
Here’s the Pownce e-mail:
What’s new with Pownce?
We recently launched the site officially and now everyone can join! Over the past few months, we’ve been quietly adding features:
- No invites are required, everyone can join!
- Import your friends. Find your Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Flickr friends easily on Pownce.
- Pownce mobile site! http://m.pownce.com
- Choose from more themes or go pro and build your own.
- View videos and images in your notes.
- Keep track of your events with improved calendar views.
- Get email notifications with the full text of the note.
We’ve got more features on the way. Thanks to everyone who registered already and special thanks to people who helped us identify and squash bugs.
Happy Valentines Day! We love our community, thanks for being part of it!
More: By the way, it’s interesting to see January was a good month for Pownce in terms of users.
Joe Duck has a post recently on Pownce, Twitter and Techmeme, and concluded that: “Pownce is a great application but I think people are unlikely to abandon Twitter for Pownce, and thus Pownce will struggle to grow from an entirely new set of social networking non-twitterers.”
Update: ReadWriteWeb recently had a post about Twittershare, which lets you shares files of up to 10MB with other Twitter users.
3 Comments
I agree that Pownce will probably be in the shadow of Twitter for months to come. However, I don’t know if Kevin has the money to loan Pownce the money to buy Twitter! I would imagine that he has a nice salary as the founder of Digg, Revision3, and Pownce, but most of his wealth is probably on paper for now.
Mark, I could not agree with you more!!!!
I haven’t joined either service yet, because I haven’t yet felt the need to. So if they could give me a reason to then I would either service.
Robert: You should check out Twitter. If anything, it’s a good way to get access to people who come across – and want to share – good content.