invites

Pownce Thoughts Plus 10 Invites

http://www.pownce.comAlthough this won’t be a thorough review, I thought I would post my thoughts on Pownce. I now have a total of 10 invitations to the service. If you want one, please leave a comment which includes a working email address and I’ll send you one.

First, you have to ask yourself, how much free time in the day do you have to join yet another social network. Twitter, Jaiku, ect and now Pownce. In order to be successful within these social networks you either have to be popular in the real world, or you need to actively contribute and participate within the community for that particular service. Do you have the time to do so?

Honestly, I think if someone were to take the best of Twitter, with the best of Jaiku, added a few features that Pownce has, establish an open API, you would have something that blows all three out of the water. I don’t think Pownce has what it takes to knock Twitter or Jaiku off the map. Pownce reminds me more of an instant messenger client rather than a micro blogging service which is why I don’t understand why so many people are comparing Pownce to the likes of Twitter and Jaiku.

I would rather see a review of Pownce as it compares to AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, ect. Then we could really see what Pownce has to offer. One thing I noticed with Pownce is that they at least have some sort of revenue stream by offering an ad free client for $20.00 Something AIM nor any other messenger offers. Jaiku has a few Google ads on the right hand side of it’s site, but I wonder how much revenue they bring in.

Simple and short, Pownce defines what it means to be beta. There are quite a few things missing that would make Pownce a complete package, open API to name one of them. Hopefully, the Pownce team will remedy the shortfalls associated with the client. I am looking forward to watching Pownce give all of the other instant messenger clients a run for their money.

I have a total of 10 invitations. Simply leave a comment on this post with a valid email address and I will send you one, then you can provide us with your own opinion.

By Invitation Only

https://i0.wp.com/jeffc.me/images/inviteonly.png

Sam Harrelson has put together a nice post detailing the buzz surrounding the GrandCentral acquisition. Sam discusses the activity with GrandCentral before the acquisition and then after. Once GrandCentral was acquired, Google then locked down the system to new users by making it an invite only service. Because of the acquisition and the move to an invitation only service, the interest in GrandCentral has skyrocketed.

Sam makes an excellent analogy between GrandCentral and the recently launched service, Pownce. Pownce, Kevin Rose’s new startup has become the hot commodity to be invited to. Everyone and their mother is seemingly still trying to grab an invite to the service, although it is not necessarily brand new.

Whats the moral behind this story? If your a Web 2.0 startup, lock down your service. Invite a couple of big name web sites to review your service and give them the ability to hand out a number of invites. Those who read the reviews will then have an opportunity to sign up to your service and in return, invite their friends. You can see where this is going. Although the invitation only technique only works for a prolonged period of time, it is hard to argue against it’s effectiveness. I suppose being part of a locked down community gives users the impression that they are special, that they are among a group of elitists.

I asked my dad if he thought that perhaps there would be some sort of business opportunity surrounding invitations to these new services. Allow people to bid on an invite or pay a low price. My father responded by saying “people won’t pay for something that is free, or that they could obtain by some other means.”

Whatever the case may be, the strategy of being an invite only service in the beginning appears to be a winning one!