Digg Founder, Kevin Rose has launched a Twitter-like start up called Pownce, which is currently an invite-only service. I was somehow able to get an invite to try out the service. I was excited at first since only a limited amount of people are welcome at present. So, before we start, here’s what the developers Leah Culver, Daniel Burka, Kevin Rose, and Shawn Allen say:
Pownce is a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more. You can do it all on our web site, or install our lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser.
In essence, Pounce is a service which is meant to help people send messages, files, links and even notifications of events to their friends. The interface is pretty straight forward. And, it also comes with a desktop application that we can install on a Windows or a Mac (which his obviously optional). There’s also an option for us to become “Pro” members whereby, we can send files upto 100 Megs of size.
The first thing they say in the little “What do I do now?” section at the bottom is to “Add or Invite Friends”. At the moment, everybody is given 6 invites. So, be careful not to throw it off. And, the next thing is, to download they’re software. This software is compatible with Adobe AIR which needs to be installed in order for this app to work.
Sending Stuff
This is what Pownce is all about: providing people with a smart and easy way to send messages and files. So, how do we do it? It’s pretty simple. In the top of the page, there’s a box where we can type up a message, send links, send files or event notifications.
Messages
Sending short messages is one of the coolest things about Pownce. Just type up what you want to, select if you want to send it to “All friends” or some specific friend (as a private note), click “Post It!” Wait for a few seconds and the clean AJAX interface sends it within seconds. It appears in all your friends’ profiles and yours too. Unlike Twitter, which is also a means of sending messages, the messages are not limited to a certain amount of words.
One of the interesting features I noted was the ability to start a conversation just like in a forum. You just need to click the “Reply” link of any of the messages that you’ve got and you can type up a reply. And, when some other person types a reply, it appears like a series of posts which makes it easy to follow the conversation. In Twitter, it’s almost impossible to figure out what others are talking about since the messages aren’t stored chronologically as conversations. But do note that, there’s no such thing as “Conversation” in the service. It’s just what I call this feature.
Files
Now, this is where Pownce takes the whole concept to the realm of rich media. You can send files of any format to your friends in Private or Public form. This includes music, videos, documents and just about anything. But the catch is, only 10 MB per file. Much like email attachments, but a lot more faster.
The upload status bar is really useful when sending bigger files. If you are willing to pay $20 per year, then you can avail a Pro account which would allow you to transfer 100 MB per file and use Pownce without ADs (although I can’t find any ADs anywhere). Go to the “Files” tab, select the file, type up some details and “Post It!”
Links
Have you ever had a situation when you saw something so cool that you can’t help but sharing it? Or, you have to send some urgent link to someone. Well, what would you do in those situations? Post it in Del.icio.us for your friends to see? Call them? Email them?
Sending a link is as easy as 1-2-3 and remarkably fast with Pounce. All you have to do is, go to the “Link” tab, enter the url, type in some details/message and click “Post It!”.
Events
You can notify your friends about certain events by going to the “Events” tab. Name the event, specify the place, specify the time and date, type up some details and voila!! Instant notification. No more calls, no more emails!!
Friends
Just as any other social networking community, you can add friends. As a matter of fact, this whole system won’t work without friends. While, in Twitter, its not necessary to have friends to share your message. Just go to someone’s profile and click “Add as friend” and till he approves, we’re his “Fan”. Familiar? (Hint: Mybloglog)
Other Features
There’s a box on the right side on the interface where you can filter your notes to view only messages, files, events, replies or messages typed by you. Pretty useful, isn’t it? Now, click the “Settings” link on the top to reveal the below features:
Themes
In the “Themes” section, we are allowed to choose between 4 themes. These themes change the interface color and background.
Most of the other features are the usual ones that you would see in any community site. So, it’s not worth mentioning here.
Conclusion
Summing it up, I think it is a very useful tool to communicate and share with people. Of course, you can expect a lot of new things in the future. But, for now, it’s just this. But, for a blogger standpoint, I think this is a really great tool for guest blogging as you can use this service to send your blog posts as document files and use the event option to do everything in correct time.
We are having 6 Pownce invites. Please make your requests through comments.
[Note: This is a guest article from Sreejith R from Webmaster Dome. Please subscribe to my RSS feed, if you would like to read more of my articles]
Discussion
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