There has been a lot of talk about Twitter versus Pownce. So I thought I would present my take on the whole thing. I am not going to give you a review of each and tell you which one is better. Instead, I thought I would use this opportunity to have a conversation about where this is all going and what it means for the future of social media, blogging, and online communications.
I think we are going to see a lot more people starting to streaming their lives. This is made up of two concepts.
Online Activity:
Allow people to create a stream of all of their online activities by using the RSS feeds from web applications.
Offline Activity:
Have people post updates on what is going on in their lifes. This can mostly be compared to Pownce and Twitter.
We need a solution that would accommodate this concept, allow us to have a network of friends, and create/view content in multiple ways. I think that Twitter should re-design their site, keep their simplicity, and add the concept of an online activity stream.
I think that we are going to see people move away from blogging toward a model like this. No, I don’t think blogs will start disappearing, the people that have a good audience and those who write longer posts will be sure to continue. But the average blogger will start streaming their life and writing short posts. They will focus more on the conversation. They will share ideas in small form factors. They will create concrete networks of people around them based on what everybody is doing online and off.
(I am aware that there is already services out there that do some of this stuff. But it hasn’t been perfected and there are problems with them)
For now here is my story of how I came to be on Twitter and Pownce…
About a month ago I decided it was about time to sign up for Twitter, the ever so popular service that allow people to share updates of their life with people. In the past week I really started getting into it and found many people whose blogs I read, who I have collaborated with, or met at conferences already on Twitter.
Then along came Pownce. I got an invite and tried the service out. The main difference between Twitter is that Pownce adds file/event sharing and is a better design. Though design is not the main thing people care about in this case, for a service like this it is all about functionality.
So, I have set up accounts at both places but for the most part I will only update Twitter. I have already found a good amount of people who I want to follow on Twitter and don’t feel like finding them again. If I want to share files with my friends I will just use a file sharing web application. Twitter is simple and doesn’t make it complicated. Twitter has an API and from that has come some wonderful apps that were made by the community. And lastly, Twitter has mobile updates which seals the deal. Twitter is for me.
Check out coverage from some other people…
Brian Benzinger at Solution Watch gives his impressions of Pownce.
Nik Cubrilovic writes about the importance of Twitter’s API.
Glenn Wolsey gives a good overview of what Pownce is all about.
Check me out and add me on Twitter and Pownce.
I have several invites left for Pownce. Leave me an email if you would like them.
