Excellent sentiments, I always liked Pownce but found that I rarely used it as all of the interesting discussions were still happening on Twitter.
I can only guess but perhaps the Pownce team will be working on some nice slick mobile and desktop clients for Vox?
Shira
· 1 year ago
However, Pownce has been bought, which means some sort of success in itself. Twitter still isn't pulling in revenue nor has it been monetized in any way. Until Twitter starts to earn money, they can not claim victory. This isn't a popularity contest. It's a business.
Fabio
· 1 year ago
Basically this article says that, despite being better and apparently "wanted", Pownce failed. However, I can't find any food for thought about what would have happened. It's just a matter of a fact, perhaps a deeper analysis would be beneficial for the readers.
Fabio
· 1 year ago
@Shira. Today's email from the Pownce team says that they will shut down the service on the 15th Dec. That's not exactly what I'd call a *success* strictly speaking.
Dave Kinsella
· 1 year ago
@Fabio perhaps the context of *success* in this case is not that the product was a success but that the product proved that the company was a worthwhile aquisition.
Frederick Townes
· 10 months ago
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Frederick Townes
· 10 months ago
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· 10 months ago
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· 10 months ago
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· 10 months ago
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· 10 months ago
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· 10 months ago
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· 10 months ago
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Connectionfailure
· 1 year ago
Wrongo. Looking for technical reasons why twitter became more popular than pownce is a red herring. Mac fans such as myself are always trying to make comparisons between a popular product (Windows) vs what we consider a better product. You know, like there may be more cockroaches than humans in the world but that doesn't make them *better*. it isn't about removing features, it's about keeping them hidden from the newbies but letting the geeks access them. Pownce was simple to use, and had good features. I believe it was just poorly marketed.
Pete
· 1 year ago
Poorly marketed? Pownce had an all star team and got endless coverage. I can think of no major tech blog that failed to cover it.
Marketing is certainly not the issue - it's far more strategic. They came out with a product that was, in the public mind, very similar to an existing product that had already passed the tipping point. By the time Pownce launched an API, there were already thousands of applications for Twitter - it was an ecosystem while Pownce was still a standalone tool.
Enrique Gutierrez
· 1 year ago
The API & lack of SMS interaction are the only two things that were major mis-plays by Pownce.
Another could have been the limiting of user control (profile customization) with their non-pro account. There are some things people will pay for (more file transfer space, removal of ads), but base functionality that's available elsewhere for free?
Rob Gough
· 1 year ago
So, just out of curiosity, what do you think they could have done differently? Facebook came after the all-conquering MySpace, and then - at least in most people's minds, left it for dead. What did pownce do so wrong?
Apart from the name.
I have an account on both services, but I only ever used twitter... and as much as I hate to think we're all fickle, did the poor name choice actually have something to do with it? Or is there more to it, why didn't we all flock to pownce?
"The main lesson is probably this: if you’re not first to the game, but perhaps second or third, you need to do your research very thoroughly; sometimes being bigger, better and faster than the competitors simply won’t do."
So, in hindsight, what did we actually learn?
Mel
· 1 year ago
i really don't understand why they had it in almost *permanent* only closed beta with invite participation and they didn't release their api for a long long time. even when they released their api, it was limited. that to me was the beginning of the end. i think they (the creators) thought that a better platform could account for a lot but in a competitive area/ market, that concept just doesn't work. they certainly had a lot of buzz around it but didn't capitalize.
they just waited too long to do something. timing is everything guys!
Bart Vickers
· 1 year ago
Twitter definitely has a PR buzz that feels eerily similar in magnitude to Second Life a couple years back. And when Pownce was facing that, they needed to tell their story better than Twitter, and they didn't. Ironically, they relied on the fact that their service was better to drive adoption. For logical thinkers out there that makes sense, but people behave in decidedly illogical ways most of the time.
I think this is a good case study for a lot of startups. Most of the startups I've come across pour all of their money into tech and have a couple crumbs left for marketing and PR (I'm a marketing guy, so take that how you will). In fact, most of them when they approach VCs don't even have a real idea of what it takes financially from a marketing perspective to launch a new product. Again, this makes sense because the brains behind the startups are usually technically brilliant. If you're a startup or considering it, make sure that you partner with someone who understands how to drive adoption and acquisition of your great idea.
Yung-Hui Lim
· 1 year ago
Mark Zuckerberg described the goals of the new Facebook Connect, "We want to make the experience as lightweight and easy to use as possible" (http://bit.ly/DuER). Sometimes, if not most of the times, simplicity rules.
sunghak
· 1 year ago
I have got good news for you Im a gdi 10$ business man are you interested in internet marketing business?
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t… you are right.â€
I hope that we'll have a successful business venture together
Do NOT post off topic comments and try to sell your services here, it makes you look like a complete idiot! Are you?
Robert Morrison
· 1 year ago
In my opinion it has nothing to do with "less is more", Twitter simply enjoys the first mover advantage. The world would be a better place if Pownce had been first with its richer feature set and reliability. But Twitter is able to rest on its laurels and is very lucky, too, since it has added *nothing* to its almost nothing feature set (in fact has taken away) and is now only slightly more reliable than before, when its reliability was indeed atrocious.
Alinna
· 1 year ago
I think we're missing one key factor for any sort of social networking tool to be successful -- people. While twitters feature set is certainly less impressive than that of Pownce, twitter owns/already owned much of the discussion space and the networks of twitterers and followers that people had. Add that to the closed beta period and Powce pretty much set itself up to shut down.
Chun
· 1 year ago
@Alinna hit the key point - people rules in social apps. We easily talk about twitter culture, what's pownce culture?
In web1.0, the competitive edge was about "better, faster, cheaper", so google can beat inktomi and yahoo, salesforce can beat Sieble. Social apps certainly demand different type of competitive edge to be extremely social.
Yung-Hui Lim
· 1 year ago
BUT first-mover advantage is no guarantee of success either. Think of search engine (Altavista/Hotbot vs Google), social network (SixDegrees vs MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, etc).
I have vlogged about why Pownce going down is a good thing for people marketing their blogs - there will now be less area to cover.
With one less social media site things can take a step toward being more concentrated as the Pownce users migrate (hopefully) to other more common apps.
None of the twitter like services have any idea of how to be profitable. Pownce was in every way a success. It was acquired by a company that is profitable. Six Apart, as a smart company, saw a great deal in acquiring Pownce's solid development team and snapped it up. They also saw no value in retaining a service that did nothing but burn money, so they gracefully shut it down.
How many of the other twitter like services will shut their doors as gracefully?
Gabe
· 1 year ago
Pownce, the product, failed in that it didn't get traction and it no longer exists now.
Mike Proulx
· 1 year ago
Despite the fact that Pownce came along during the “technical difficulty†times of Twitter, there was (and is) an extreme amount of brand loyalty to the service – and people stuck with it and it’s kinda become mainstream. I say this, though, while being reminded of the old Netscape vs. Internet Explorer wars which Microsoft ended up winning despite the loyalty (and first to market) of Netscape Navigator. But Twitter is different in the sense that it’s a community of people and helps foster relationships – this effects human behavior that is much harder to disrupt and change.
wDating
· 1 year ago
Pownce has been bought, I wonder how much they paid for , anyone know?
Shira
· 1 year ago
@Fabio - we don't know what their exit strategy was. If it was to be bought (as so many companies exit strategy is) then it was a win. At the end of the day most companies value is in their human capital.
Bart Vickers
· 1 year ago
I think it's also important to remember that while Twitter enjoys some first-mover advantages, from a simple numbers perspective they have relatively small penetration. Twitter's users are exponentially more passionate and vocal than they are numerous. What that means is that a second mover with a broader market penetration strategy could very realistically pass Twitter up. Twitter would be left as the smaller, perhaps elite, "we were here first" niche-within-a-niche.
And this is all assuming that there is broader, genuinely mass appeal for microblogging. It's absolutely possible that microblogging is attractive to only a small percentage of the overall population and will never be a "mass" channel. Again, it feels a little like the rush to Second Life a couple of years ago.
Fabio
· 1 year ago
@Shira @Dave Kinsella - The way I read it is that the team should be very good / worth an acquisition but the product isn't and don't fit into Six Apart's strategy, which is not necessarily the worst thing in the world, but it sounds to me like the proof that the current service didn't succeed. One thing is a service and another is the team behind it. Anyway, I don't want to judge anyone (even because I don't know anyone at Pownce) and I don't know the future plans of Six Apart / Pownce, I just wanted to point out that shutting down a service can be rarely called a success - for that service at least.
twitterfail
· 1 year ago
Twitter & the concept is ridiculous. I can't wait for this stupid iTrend to die off. Seriously, no one cares what you tweet, not even your friends. And, it was quickly picked up by the advertising media, which just shows you how "cool" this isn't. FAIL.
@AndrewSansone
· 1 year ago
With so many social media platforms now to keep up with -- less is more focused and manageable.
JonnyD
· 1 year ago
I think what some people failed to even think about or mention about pownce is that while it was feature bloated on it's web interface it had no good API or SMS access. This means all those people who are not bound to a browser all day like myself have limited access to the site VS twitters very efficient API and SMS system. I have friends who still have the default icon because they have never visited the site once, they use it purely through their phones. This combined with it's api is a powerful aspect that disconnects the service from the browser and allows everyone to take it everywhere... THIS in my opinion is what really makes Twitter the superior service, not some kind of brand loyalty or `FIRST!`. I have a pownce, I used it once and when I discovered they have no SMS piece and no good phone apps it immediately was tossed aside and ignored, it was obvious to me that they thought they could take the system and beat it by added all this stuff but in the end they failed to add what made it popular in the first place... the concept of "micro-blogging is blog from anywhere"
valleymonger
· 1 year ago
what the f^*k did 6A do?
1. 6A just laid off people. Why are they spending money in this crappy company? (i know, friends are for these moments, but all has a limit, or should have).
2. “acquiring†a company because the “â€valueâ€" of their team sounds so much like 99 (aka, yahoo buying broadcast.com). If there are 2 engineers worth at pownce, why not let the company shut down completely and then hire them? it’s not that the market is super hot and they would have a job the next day…
again, all this is very disappointing (note that i am not saying “surprisingâ€), and shows once more that there is a small group of “cool†people running great part of the bay area’s internet…
some may say that the 6A layoffs were a covered way of firing some of their underperforming employees... But the 6A executive team cut their salaries by something like 10% together with the layoffs… would that make them underperformers as well?
i get the point (made by some people) of covering the need/will to fire some people with the veil of layoffs, a nicer concept both for the employee getting sacked and for the manager (who hired poorly), but given the current state of the markets (financial and real), I still wonder why they are spending money in a company that has people like culver and ariel waldmann…
maybe 6A need new underperforming employees for their next round of “layoffs�
Tom Altman
· 1 year ago
I wonder what would have happened if Pownce would have embraced Twitter? Like allowed to pull in Twitter's feed...
Sayın hemşehrim;sitede dolaşırken rastladım yazılalarına yazılarını beğendim .Ben Bursa'da oturuyorum fakat aslen Eskişehirli'yim emekliyim,senin yaşlarında iki oğlum var.Bende bazen boş zamanlarımda internete takılıyorum.Ara sıra yazışalım,slm. ve sevgiler..
abby
· 1 year ago
"Just because there may be more cokroaches than humans, it doesn't make them better and successful" ... It was truly hilarious. Microblogging services are those cokroaches. Twitter and similar micro blogging services are just a fad fueled by hyper active VC community looking for a smart exit. (remember podcasting?) Pownce failed because microblogging is a poor business idea... Twitter may defy gravity for some more time... (till media and advertising dollars dry up) but it would have a similar fate very soon.
Lakshmi Vyas
· 1 year ago
I agree with the less is more part but for a different set of reasons. Twitter's 140 character limit is what makes it click. Posting a tweet is like writing poetry. It makes the tweets interesting, funny and fulfilling. You take the character limit and its just a poorly implemented persistent public chat room. Removing the character limit when trying to compete with twitter is like a Sonnet competing with Haiku: "Its just like Haiku only longer"
Mike
· 1 year ago
you are so right! hope that netppl.net gets some of pownce features!
netppl.net/mike
Jerry
· 1 year ago
Pownce had three big problems:
1) The "Network Effect". Everyone was already using Twitter (when it was up) even core Pownce folks.
2) No API == no TweetDeck, Twitterific, WP Plugin, ...
All Comments
I can only guess but perhaps the Pownce team will be working on some nice slick mobile and desktop clients for Vox?
That's not exactly what I'd call a *success* strictly speaking.
it isn't about removing features, it's about keeping them hidden from the newbies but letting the geeks access them. Pownce was simple to use, and had good features. I believe it was just poorly marketed.
Marketing is certainly not the issue - it's far more strategic. They came out with a product that was, in the public mind, very similar to an existing product that had already passed the tipping point. By the time Pownce launched an API, there were already thousands of applications for Twitter - it was an ecosystem while Pownce was still a standalone tool.
Another could have been the limiting of user control (profile customization) with their non-pro account. There are some things people will pay for (more file transfer space, removal of ads), but base functionality that's available elsewhere for free?
Apart from the name.
I have an account on both services, but I only ever used twitter... and as much as I hate to think we're all fickle, did the poor name choice actually have something to do with it? Or is there more to it, why didn't we all flock to pownce?
"The main lesson is probably this: if you’re not first to the game, but perhaps second or third, you need to do your research very thoroughly; sometimes being bigger, better and faster than the competitors simply won’t do."
So, in hindsight, what did we actually learn?
they just waited too long to do something. timing is everything guys!
I think this is a good case study for a lot of startups. Most of the startups I've come across pour all of their money into tech and have a couple crumbs left for marketing and PR (I'm a marketing guy, so take that how you will). In fact, most of them when they approach VCs don't even have a real idea of what it takes financially from a marketing perspective to launch a new product. Again, this makes sense because the brains behind the startups are usually technically brilliant. If you're a startup or considering it, make sure that you partner with someone who understands how to drive adoption and acquisition of your great idea.
Im a gdi 10$ business man are you interested in internet marketing business?
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t… you are right.â€
I hope that we'll have a successful business venture together
http://freedom.ws/cshak25
In web1.0, the competitive edge was about "better, faster, cheaper", so google can beat inktomi and yahoo, salesforce can beat Sieble. Social apps certainly demand different type of competitive edge to be extremely social.
I've elaborated more here:
http://www.greyreview.com/2008/08/23/how-to-cre...
With one less social media site things can take a step toward being more concentrated as the Pownce users migrate (hopefully) to other more common apps.
http://www.from-the-couch.com/post.cfm/title/po...
None of the twitter like services have any idea of how to be profitable. Pownce was in every way a success. It was acquired by a company that is profitable. Six Apart, as a smart company, saw a great deal in acquiring Pownce's solid development team and snapped it up. They also saw no value in retaining a service that did nothing but burn money, so they gracefully shut it down.
How many of the other twitter like services will shut their doors as gracefully?
And this is all assuming that there is broader, genuinely mass appeal for microblogging. It's absolutely possible that microblogging is attractive to only a small percentage of the overall population and will never be a "mass" channel. Again, it feels a little like the rush to Second Life a couple of years ago.
Anyway, I don't want to judge anyone (even because I don't know anyone at Pownce) and I don't know the future plans of Six Apart / Pownce, I just wanted to point out that shutting down a service can be rarely called a success - for that service at least.
I have friends who still have the default icon because they have never visited the site once, they use it purely through their phones. This combined with it's api is a powerful aspect that disconnects the service from the browser and allows everyone to take it everywhere... THIS in my opinion is what really makes Twitter the superior service, not some kind of brand loyalty or `FIRST!`.
I have a pownce, I used it once and when I discovered they have no SMS piece and no good phone apps it immediately was tossed aside and ignored, it was obvious to me that they thought they could take the system and beat it by added all this stuff but in the end they failed to add what made it popular in the first place... the concept of "micro-blogging is blog from anywhere"
1. 6A just laid off people. Why are they spending money in this crappy company? (i know, friends are for these moments, but all has a limit, or should have).
2. “acquiring†a company because the “â€valueâ€" of their team sounds so much like 99 (aka, yahoo buying broadcast.com). If there are 2 engineers worth at pownce, why not let the company shut down completely and then hire them? it’s not that the market is super hot and they would have a job the next day…
again, all this is very disappointing (note that i am not saying “surprisingâ€), and shows once more that there is a small group of “cool†people running great part of the bay area’s internet…
some may say that the 6A layoffs were a covered way of firing some of their underperforming employees... But the 6A executive team cut their salaries by something like 10% together with the layoffs… would that make them underperformers as well?
i get the point (made by some people) of covering the need/will to fire some people with the veil of layoffs, a nicer concept both for the employee getting sacked and for the manager (who hired poorly), but given the current state of the markets (financial and real), I still wonder why they are spending money in a company that has people like culver and ariel waldmann…
maybe 6A need new underperforming employees for their next round of “layoffs�
www.iamlittle.net
Pownce failed because microblogging is a poor business idea... Twitter may defy gravity for some more time... (till media and advertising dollars dry up) but it would have a similar fate very soon.
hope that netppl.net gets some of pownce features!
netppl.net/mike
1) The "Network Effect". Everyone was already using Twitter (when it was up) even core Pownce folks.
2) No API == no TweetDeck, Twitterific, WP Plugin, ...
3) No SMS.