Social Networking… who would have ever thought it’d be as big as it is today. Everyone and their brother is in the game. And while I have an account on just about everyone of them, there are only a few that I log into on a regular basis.

Of course, I don’t count sites like Twitter, Plurk, or Pownce as a “Social Network”. Other people do, but I still consider these blogging services… or if you’d prefer micro-blog. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about a few services, and here are my thoughts…

Continue reading »

There has been some rumble the last few days about a new service called Plurk. I first noticed it when ping.fm did an update earlier this week and added support for it.

Plurk, like Twitter, is a micro-blog / status service. However rather than display things in a list view, Plurk uses a rather nice timeline view. This fresh approach, in addition to Twitters consistent stability issues has lead people to ask, could Plurk be a twitter killer?

My answer: Sure, it could be. But it still has a long way to go, and will need to offer several additional features. But so far, I’ve really liked it.

Of course, Plurk isn’t the fist service to be considered a “twitter killer”. Pownce and Jaiku as well as other services have all shared the same title. So far, nothing has really been able to touch the king of micro-blogging.

Part of what makes Twitter so unbeatable right now is the number of applications, plugins, and extensions that allow you to user Twitter. You’ll find something twitter related for Firefox, Flock, Google Desktop, iGoogle, Facebook, you can even find widgets that allow you to display your tweets on your personal blog. Not to mention the dozens of other sites out there that will aggregate your twitter data and display it.

What service does everyone else use? I’ve got friends on them all. So far my favorite is Plurk, followed by Ponce and Jaiku, with Twitter dead last.

My Profiles:
Plurk
Pownce
Jaiku
Twitter

At 12:00 am PST this morning, Pownce left private beta. No more invites needed! There are several new features to go with the “Pownce Launch”, though I’m not sure exactly what. I had expected Leigh or someone to update the Pownce Blog, but that’s not been done yet. Slackers!

Micro-bloging site Pownce will officially go live this month. That means on January 22, you’ll no longer need an invite to use the service. Leah Culver has given a quick interview with Tech Confidential where she talks about Pownce and it’s future. I hope the Pownce release comes with IM and SMS/MMS support.

Source: Digg

Yesterday the Pownce crew rolled out a new (and long overdue) feature, Pownce Mobile. You can send and view messages, links, files, and events just like you would on Pownce proper, the only thing missing from Pownce Mobile is the ability to edit your profile or friends.

It’s a nice new feature, but I’m sure a majority of the Pownce users would still rather have a Pownce SMS option.

And yes, it does look pretty nice on the iPhone.

The Pownce crew has added a few new themes for user profiles. Nothing really spectacular as far as the themes go, however they have given pro users the ability to create semi-custom themes. Pownce Pro users can add their own background, as well as change some of the colors. So far they don’t plan on giving “MySpace type control” to the style sheets, which I’m sure most people can understand why.

I just noticed that I had a ton of invites for Pownce, so if ya would like a Pownce invite leave me your email and I’ll throw one your way. There are pretty easy to come by now.

I’ve also got invites for a number of other services… Yahoo Mash, GrandCentral, and Jaiku are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Let me know if you want something else, chances are I’ll have and invite or know where you can find one.

The Pownce crew has unleashed a new update for their Social Network site. Some pretty nice features included this time around, yet still no SMS ability which is probably one of the most requested features that I’ve seen.

By the way, if anyone needs a Pownce invite let me know (need an email from ya). I’ve got 6 to give away…

You can now post to Pownce via Imified thanks to the unofficial API.

I’m still using the Pownce website to post. Keep hoping that a widget/extension will be released for Opera, Trillian, or Firefox. Though this is certainly a step in the right direction.