Pownce Grief
December 3rd, 2008 · by David Bradley >> 5 Comments
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Anyone who is anyone was on Pownce, it was like Twitter on ‘roids, but a little bit weird too, like anyone on ‘roids, I guess.
But SixApart has put Pownce on death row after their takeover of this microblogging site. December 15 is execution day. If you’re already mourning its imminent demise, then you may wish to (re)read by grief counselling for bloggers post, it will help you move on.
However, if you really cannot let go of Pownce, then there is a support group. Heidi Cool alerted me to her creation over on ning. It is called Pownce Refugees, and will provide Pownce ‘fugees with a place to stay in touch and maintain links and provide support in these difficult times. It’s already all over Facebook…ironically enough.
But, the imminent death of Pownce should serve as a lesson to us all of how fragmentary and fleeting our virtual lives are. One day you are riding how microblogging, sharing pictures, sounds, music, videos, the next, shot down in flames. Darren Rowse recently raised the notion of what to do to protect yourself from the collapse of any service on which you rely.
Fundamentally, the best protection is to make real connections with the real people you meet on any social media service.
You should get into the habit of swapping emails at the earliest opportunity with those you trust, admire, or simply have fun with. Subscribe to their blogs and comment on their posts, basically interact! Then, should any of your connection points, social media sites, web 2.0 watercoolers go belly up, you’ll have that more solid connection to fall back on.
It’s possible that Heidi’s Pownce refugee camp will actually end up bigger than Pownce ever was. Who knos? Or, you could simply move on, switch to Twitter, and forget Pownce.
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5 responses so far ↓
I never used Pownce. I would be pretty upset if the same thing happened to Twitter but I would move on. I wouldn’t join a Facebook group or anything like that.
It’s a really good idea to form connections with the people you have the strongest relationships with on the various online services.
@Kim That’s definitely the best piece of advice for all of us who use social media. We must remember that these sites are merely tools for connecting with other people. Of course, the cynical marketeers don’t see it that way, but who wants to stay connected to someone who is only out to get your clickthrus?
Jerry F // Dec 8, 2008 at 10:07 am
Yes, I’ve once again done a ton of research on such sites due to having to move a group of 20 with specialized needs in this regard. That’s how I found Pownce. With all the alphas, betas, ‘must have’ features, other factors and the urgency of time…we had to settle on Plurk (with all its good and bad). Again this was a group that interacts many, many times daily so our needs were different than others. It’s not a plug by any means. It was an enormous feat to get a group of 20 opinions to find a happy medium and compromise in the jungle (or desert) that is microblogging. We were only able to do so unified by the value we all placed on the friendships apart from whatever site we were on. Emotionally draining but we stayed together regardless of the site. We allowed the strength of community and friendship to help us during the migration. I wish it upon nobody and no group.
David,
Thanks for the mention of Pownce Refugees. We have a small but growing community there and I’m hoping that despite it’s different feature set it will serve the needs for many. In particular it works very well for longer discussions and media sharing.
But you also bring up a valid point, as we grow to depend on more and more of these not-as-yet-monetized services, we still have no ideas as to which will last and which won’t. If Pownce had simply shut the door with no notice, I’d have had to scramble to find some of my Pownce friends, but not all. I had already made multiple connections with you and others in my core network. Trading e-mails, friending on multiple services, bookmarking/subscribing to each other’s blogs are all tactics that can help us keep our connections from being service-dependent.
@Heidi I think there’s a need to future-proof our online connections by doing exactly this. Create your own network by connecting on different systems, through each others’s blogs, email, and heaven forbid phone or face.
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