Ramble

I finally got my Pownce invite the other day and created an account. I invited a few people from work and a friend of mine and started Powncing, pouncing, whatever. The thing is, the service, as currently implemented, sucks.

I can use a slow Web-based IM client to send messages to my friends list or post on a public feed (a la Twitter) or I can use a barely functional Adobe AIR application on my desktop. While I like the attempt at a limited taxonomy of message types, their implementation doesn’t seem to do much with the different types beyond formatting and styling their appearance in messages. So, an “Event” shows up as a message with “What, Where, When” fields, while a “Link” shows up as a button-like icon. The only type that seems to provide some functionality is the “File” type which displays as a button to download the file or an embedded player, depending on the kind of file it was that I uploaded. Unfortunately, even this limited innovation is squashed by the paltry 10MB limit on uploaded files. Even a “Pro” account only nets you 100MB per file (for a fee of $20/year).

Oddly, there is currently no SMS support, so I can’t post anything from my phone. I guess I could configure my account to send notifications to the Verizon SMS gateway to get SMS messages of updates, that is if the updates actually worked. They don’t seem to be working for me.

Finally, there is no API access. I could forgive the current, sluggish interface and lacking feature set if I could hook my own app into the Pownce platform. I think it would be great if I could hook my IM client into Pownce and provide a single, rich interface to Pownce in the same place as I connect with other IM networks. Or, I could write a plugin for Wordpress to cross-post certain blog entries to my Pownce account or vice-versa, like is being done on Facebook. There are countless ways an API would be useful and I know the Pownce team must be working on one, but I think it was a big mistake to release what amounts to a lackluster Web-based IM client/micro-blogging tool without the ability to integrate it into the many other IM and blogging tools that people are already using.

I think there is a lot of potential in a service like this as a platform on-top of which sharing and collaboration tools can be built. But, the service, as stands now, feels like an Alpha build. I am a proponent of release early, release often, but with so little to offer in its initial release, the Pownce team is risking losing many of the early adopters by the time they manage to implement significant expanded features.

Despite all of this, I’m not going to count out the Pownce team, just yet. For now, I’ll continue to play with it, but I’m going to probably stick with Adium and email for my primary “stuff” sending needs. I’ll see how things stand after their next major feature release.