Shankar Ganesh

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A look at Pownce

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Just got invited to Pownce by Kuanhoong and I’m trying it out.

What’s Pownce?
If you didn’t know, it’s Kevin Rose’s (the Digg guy) latest start up. In short, Twitter with added features. That’s Pownce. The sign up form requires you to post the usual details: name, location, email and an avatar. The persons you invite are automatically added to your friends list, nothing much special here.


The interface
Pownce has a web interface that lets you to post messages, links, files, and events. You can send notes and files privately to your friends or you could put them in public. A Pownce user will be able to see all your public messages and files, if I’m right. The interface can be customized with themes, just like you do on Twitter.

Pownce Web interface screenshot

Alternatively, you can download the Pownce client on your PC or Mac to access Pownce and post messages. The Pownce client requires the Adobe Integrated Environment to run. It’s around 8 MB for Windows, but I think it’s worth it. After installing the runtime environment, you’re supposed to install the Pownce client. Here’s how it looks:

Sporting a black interface, the Pownce desktop client has the necessary options on top that let you send messages, files, links and events – to all your friends (public) or just to the buddies you select.

Pownce Desktop Client

Features
As I said, Pownce lets you to share files, events, messages and links. That’s just its features summed up in a line.

pownce_file_upload

pownce_file_notification

Other things
Pownce has highly modifiable settings. Control notifications, privacy stuff and all.

Pro Account
There’s a Pro account for Pownce available, and it costs $20 and being a Pro, you’ll be able to send files upto 100 MB with no ads. Personally, I think it’s no use in paying Pownce 20$ per year. Flickr costs 24$ per year and they give unlimited uploading facility and bandwidth – compare that with Pownce: it’s nothing.

What’s missing?

Currently, the project is in alpha stage – so expect some adds in the near feature. I hate the fact that the client requires AIR – which is an 8 MB download :( It would be better if they make it independent of such things.

20$ is too much for a Pro account (100 MB file transfer only). They should bring it down.

I currently have only two invites left. Anyone needs it (Sorry, used up).
What are your thoughts on Pownce?

Written by admin

July 1st, 2007 at 1:01 pm

Posted in web 2.0

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  • http://www.kuanhoong.com/ kuanhoong

    Nice to know you are having fun with Pownce!. :-)

    Hey, I still have a few invitations to be given away

  • http://ashwinr.com/ Ashwin

    Surprised to see that it’s not blocked here in the UAE!

  • http://daily-tech-news.blogspot.com/ Ramkarthik

    Will give it a try. Shankar, you don’t have any more invite? Oh! Fine. Let me see if anyone else has. Thanks for introducing Pownce to me.

  • http://logesh.co.in Logesh

    Hai, Good post Shankar. If anyone have invitations please send one to me (logesh.sendhai[at]gmail.com). Thanks in Advance :)

  • http://pingpulse.com sindhu

    hi! good to read a review here. been hunting for some (and wondering why bloggers haven’t laid hands on it as yet ) lol

    i’ve got the app as well. but sadly no invite code. it looks neat and light.

    am not sure who it would prove to be a competition to twitter.

    its always like that one service becomes popular creating a new genre and another one comes up with better features, the first one wont go down unless of course the second one is that hell of a product and having features users cant do without.

    the file transferring thing is all okay (hate the pro account part though!). but twitter can be used via a cell phone, texting…pownce? yet to see.

  • http://www.nirmaltv.com Nirmal

    Nice review, but 20$ is more for a pro account.

  • http://www.teknobites.com/2007/07/02/pownce-invites/ Pownce Invites at Technology Bites

    [...] Kevin Rose’s New startup. Today i got an invite from Shankar Ganesh to pownce (see his review). I got 6 invites to send, if you need one drop a [...]

  • http://www.teknobites.com ram

    Hey i don’t think that $20 is bad, if i am correct 100MB is an upload size of a file. I guess you can send any number of file but each file size should be below 100MB. In flickr you upload photos of size around 1-4 MB, so we can’t really compare with Flickr. This limit is may be to prevent abusing of the system.
    or I may be wrong.

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com/ Shankar Ganesh

    @Kuanhoong: Yep! Pownce is great fun. Loving it.
    @Ashwin: Is UAE becoming like China?
    @Sindhu: Think you got an invite and you’re enjoying it. And yeah, mobile version of Pownce would make it too good.
    @Ram: Hmm.. I’m also not sure about it, though. But let’s see how things go.

  • http://www.techlivez.com shashank

    these big guys keep on creating new things ….

  • http://www.everydayweekender.com cottage

    WELL.. they gotta keep themselves busy.. ;)

  • http://www.reviewsaurus.com ReviewSaurus

    They should keep the pro account thing for later stages, I think they could have just provided the service and once it gets popular…they could introduce pro account.

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com/ Shankar Ganesh

    @Shashank, Cottage: That’s right :P They have the money, and the potential and so they bring up stuff :D
    @ReviewSaurus: Yeah, I was also thinking of why they put up the PRO feature. It’s still in alpha and needs a lot of features first of all.

  • http://blogs.mysites-advisor.com Ken Xu

    I got one too! but haven’t try it! I will spread this invitation when I’ve tried it! :)

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com/ Shankar Ganesh

    Hope you’re having great fun with Pownce, Ken Xu.

  • http://www.easytweaks.com Gili

    I concur with Nirmal. I also believe Pownce it’s a bit overhyped, but that’s only my view :)

  • http://www.reviewsaurus.com ReviewSaurus

    Indeed it is over hyped and I don’t see any reason, Bloggers can actually make and break things :D

  • http://www.pallab.net Pallab

    I actually think Pownce is better than I expected it to be. I mean when I first read the description it just seemed like yet another useless web 2.0 service. But, the ability to send a message or files to groups of friends is quite nice. Its definitely better than much hyped twitter and other mini blogging services.

  • http://tan-com.com/jake/posts/fridays-links-volume-v/ Friday’s Links – Volume V :: Jatecblog

    [...] A look at Pownce – Shankar Ganesh | Tech Blog [...]

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com/ Shankar Ganesh

    May be it’s overhyped. But I think it’s worth the hype ;)

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