Pownce closes soon: Grab your data while you can
In case you had forgotten that microblogging and file-sharing social network Pownce is shutting down in mere hours, here's your friendly reminder.
If you were a user of the site, now is a good time to go back and take one last look at all your past quips, shared files, and discussion threads, since they'll soon be wiped clean.
As mentioned before, there is an escape hatch to take everything you've posted to the site and bring it elsewhere--the only catch is that you have to request it before the site shutters. You'll get a download link to the data file e-mailed in "a few days," but you must begin the process from this page while it's still up.
There's a post on the official Pownce blog about what to do when you get your hands on the data, in the form of import instructions for Vox, TypePad, and WordPress.
Most of my Pownce contacts seem to have left for Twitter or Vox. There's also a room in FriendFeed called "Pownce Exiles" with just fewer than 200 members. It's hard to believe that there was a time in which invitations to this site were fetching cold, hard cash on eBay.
Update: Pownce has now shut down completely, although the export page, along with the links to download exported user data files remains. Of note is that my data export from earlier today only took a couple of hours, instead of days as the site stated. One reader also wrote in to let us know ex-Powncers can export their identity to Soup.io, although I'm not sure if this works since Pownce's site is no longer there to serve up the data.
Pownce users can export their user data to another network before the site shuts down. The exported data takes a couple of days to show up elsewhere, though.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Josh Lowensohn writes for Webware.com, CNET's blog about Web applications and services. E-mail Josh, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Josh. 
