Pownce Closes Its Doors; Moves to Movable Type

The not-so-popular microblogging service Pownce will be shutting its doors on December 15th (roughly two weeks from now) and will have a bittersweet farewell by its members and founders.  In just one short year (the service officially opened to the public in January 2008), the service was never able to kick off and have the major mass appeal factor that Twitter had – what led to its demise and what will become of this closing?

The Problems and Downfall

Pownce was a little too late to the microblogging arena and Twitter was able to grow on a basis of “devoted” members who continued to use the service, even if there was lots of downtime initially.  Then, mass media began promoting Twitter as a way of communicating with one another quickly, and the downfall was inevitable.  There was simply no way of keeping the service active when members were flocking to the more popular, and simpler solution.

The Similarities 

Twitter and Pownce were so similar that there was little to separate them, except that Pownce was more visual, allowing you to post images, videos, and more right within the message and there were less text/character restrictions.

Take a look at Pownce’s introductory statement: “Send messages, files, links, and events to your friends. Create a network of friends and share stuff. It’s free and easy…” then Twitter’s: “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”  Overall, they were meant to accomplish the same thing.

Mass Media Appeal

Because Twitter is essentially its own company, it was able to focus more efforts and raise more capital in order to continue operation.  In the meantime, Pownce was owned by Megatechtronium, who simply couldn’t lead the fight against the media giants, who were promoting it heavily during newscasts and specials.  People who normally wouldn’t use the social media tool soon became addicted to it and it spread like wildfire, even more so in the past quarter.

The main “benefit” to Twitter is that it was completely free (although some look at the image/video/text limits as negative aspects), whereas Pownce was operating on a paid (Pro) option and advertising.

With the death of Pownce, more like-minded services will be created, as there is Jaiku, Youmeo, Identil.ca, Plurk, Tumblr, which have all been created within the past several years due to the newly-developed rapid-fire communication method.

Simplified.

This line can be what held Pownce back from Twitter.  They had a desktop application, but beyond this, the functionality of Twitter was much simpler – you expressed what you were doing and nothing more.  Despite the fact that Pownce was more complex and feature-rich, they were unable to compete with a service that did what it was supposed to (when it was up) and nothing more.

What May Become of its Service/Founders

The two lead developers of the service – Leah Culver and Mike Malone will be migrating over to the Vox team, which may indicate that their expertise and knowledge will be used in developing that blogging tool, although it could also mean that a separate division will be created/added to the service, allowing you to quickly input messages (like Twitter and Pownce).

There have been past instances where the founders (and the entire company) have been acquired in order to advance another company’s services, as may be true in this case.  Another solution would be to have the founders work on integrating the previous interface/features into their Vox, MovableType, or TypePad blog systems, which would prove to be beneficial in the long-term.  After all, Six Apart has been in operation since 2001, and would be able to get more capital or funding to keep the service’s founders working on new projects.

You can find the “welcome” post on Six Apart’s Blog or the “farewell” message on Pownce’s blog.

The founders left with this note: “We’re bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we’ll come back with something much better in 2009. We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all.”

If you used the service: You are suggested to move your settings/posts to other services, such as their own Vox or TypePad, or WordPress using the export tool found within the Settings > Export area.

Your Thoughts

What are your thoughts on the closing of Pownce – have you ever used the service?