Pownce to shut down after Six Apart sale

Another one bites the dust? Pownce, a would-be Twitter rival that was heavily hyped due to the involvement of Digg co-founder Kevin Rose, is closing its doors in two weeks.

It's not quite going away, according to a post from Pownce founder Leah Culver on the start-up's official blog. The technology has been sold to blog platform Six Apart, which runs TypePad and Movable Type. And its two full-time employees, Culver and Mike Malone, will be joining Six Apart's team.

"We'll be closing down the main Pownce Web site two weeks from today, December 15," Culver wrote. "Since we'd like for you to have access to all your Pownce messages, we've added an export function...(you can) import your posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress."

Pownce, which is like Twitter with additional features like file-sharing, was so buzzworthy at its debut that people were auctioning alpha test invites off on eBay. It also had a business model, with paid accounts available for sale. But the Pownce hype died off, and Twitter gained more and more market share.

Additionally, we heard that the self-funded Pownce was trying to secure a round of venture capital. It looks like that didn't work out. This is, after all, not a great time to be raising money.

Six Apart is encouraging Pownce members to join its blog platform Vox. "We hope the Pownce and Vox communities can come together, just as the teams have, towards a better future," Six Apart's Chris Alden wrote on the company blog.

Pownce's two other co-founders, Rose and Daniel Burka, will become Six Apart "advisers."

[Mr. Dee]

The less the better. I have been on Twitter for the past 2 months now and I actually like it. Its not as rich like Facebook, but it does seem like a nice platform for basic communication. :)

[thebarce]

The pownce blog says, "We will be closing the service and Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart, the company behind such great blogging software as Movable Type, TypePad and Vox," but no where in there is the word sale. Can someone confirm for sure if it was a sale, and if so, for how much?

[limefan913]

Damn shame really. Pownce was an excellent site. Additionally Leah Culver managed to write a VERY strong back end for the site, so issues were pretty rare.

[mootymooty]

I liked Pownce too. I thought the site was really cool and had a lot of neat features. Through Digg, I found this:
http://digg.com/software/Goodbye_Pownce_Hello_Schmownce
and it looked cool, so I gave it a shot. It really is just like Pownce, and they have a place where you can import your Pownce export file. Pretty nifty. :P

[jlee888]

Its easy to write a STRONG back end when you have no traffic

[Shion_Hyrez]

Very true indeed. I only discovered it last week and liked it as it let you share files too. Oh well. Makes me think I maybe should stick to the tried and tested sites that people are using, not ones that I just think are good.

[dantynan]

the real question is, who's next?

Web of the Living Dead -- http://blogs.computerworld.com/web_20_dead_pool

cheers,

dt

[suntink]

I have been looking around and found a great replacement to pownce. Check out peekamo...it will blow your mind.