Services

It seems like with the launch of Pownce that it is going to be some sort of battle between it and Twitter. However, I think that the two systems are quite complimentary. Twitter aims to be a multiplatform messaging system. Pownce aims to be a multipurpose sharing system.

Twitter sends small text bursts to an user’s network of friends across the web into as many formats as needed: desktop, texts, instant messenger, etc. Perhaps in the future, Twitter will expand into text-to-speech (to leave voice mail) or even just plain email alerts. But the point is that it aims to be a one-input-to-many-outputs texting system. Twitter launched without a special application because SMS was Twitter’s special application. Sharing location and ideas are perfect for this. Sending structured data, like links and threaded replies, is awkward but possible. Sending things only to specific groups of a user’s network, not at all.

Pownce, on the other hand fills this void. It is designed to take binary data (like files) or structured data (like events) and share them with specific friends or groups easily. Public sharing is enabled simply because it is possible, and attracts new users. But rich data must be sent to systems that can read it. There’s no good reason to send a 100MB file to a mobile — yet — which is why the computer desktop is the focus for now. It is also designed to circumvent restrictions of other networks, like in the case of file sharing, which is why a desktop client is such an integral and promoted component of the site.

Notice the subtle differences yet? Twitter aims to supplement existing messaging technologies, while Pownce aims to supplant them. Twitter will happily integrate into your Google Talk account and route your messages into your instant messenger. Pownce wants you to skip the instant messenger entirely. On Twitter, I am either public or private, period — and when I am public, the world has access all the time… it is an electronic megaphone blasting out in all forms (just check out Twittervision!). On Pownce, I have no explicit state because it all depends on how I chose to send things on a post-by-post basis. My privacy is dependent on what and how I wish to share items. I don’t broadcast, I conditionally publish. My material is hosted. In this sense, I see Pownce vs. Tumblr as the real point of conflict, not Pownce vs. Twitter.

In the end, I see both companies going in different, but complimentary directions. Sure, you can share text on Pownce but you can’t get that Pownce as an SMS. And you can share a link on Twitter but you can’t get a file, either. It’s all in how you choose to share yourself the most. What I am doing and what I want you to see are, in fact, different things and they will continue to be surfaced in different ways by these services.

Derek, who runs the amazing 5thirtyone.com has been talking about IMified for some time now, and I finally decided to give it a whirl. IMified is a chat buddy — something that isn’t immediately clear on the home page — that you add to your IM service of choice, and it basically gives you command line-like access into a number of features. Notes, reminders and to-dos are built in, but blogging and even Twitter posting can be enabled. This post, in fact, was written inside IMified (and explains the lack of line breaks, since I’m still learning the system). It’s an awesome little system, you don’t need a password at all (since that’s all managed through your IM service) and you can get up and running using it in a matter of seconds. Very nice.