Pownce tee provided by Startups Schwag.
As you already know, I’m a big fan of the 2.0 social nets. I was an early adopter of the big three 2.0s: Facebook, Twitter, and Pownce. (We shall not mention myspace. I like to pretend that it doesn’t exist). So far I’ve maintained active accounts in all three, but lately I find my ability to keep up witty repartee a la hotdogladies on all three almost impossible.
After a while, I find my tweets turning more into “What are you putting on your toast this morning?” than intelligent commentary of the technerdy things I’m doing. Plus, with the audience of these three nets differing so dramatically it’s not really appropriate to copy and paste or feed your status from one soc net to the others.
Twitter’s audience is uber geeky, from the tech, design, and blogging elite, to the politically active, to the dot com moguls. Anyone who is anyone on the www is on Twitter. Pownce seems to draw in a mixed bunch of users. For me, Pownce’s audience seems quite diverse, somewhere in between Twitter and Facebook with a huge teenage population who love youtube clips. Wowie! And the behemoth Facebook seems to attract everyone, including grandparents, ex-flings, your 9th grade English teacher, your arch nemisis, your 12 year-old Turkish penpal, and that annoying kid that ate Beefaroni out of old camping thermos everyday for lunch… Seriously, who isn’t on Facebook? I can only think of one person I know who isn’t on Facebook.
So if you are to keep the peace between your geeky Twitter iFriends and your tech-illiterate Facebook friends and your uber trendy Pownce friends you probably shouldn’t feed your daily WP plug-in tweets to your other nets. I find that it confuses people and then I have to explain things to people who think that Google is the internet and then I get annoyed and then bored and then I fall asleep in mid-sentence. And people seem to not like it when you fall asleep during dinner time discussions. Oops. Plus, with so many people on multiple nets, you don’t want to be double, or triple posting stuff to the same people.
What’s the solution then you lazy smart arse? Well, I think if you want to maximize your networking and community building opportunities you really need all three. I feel the same way with IM programs. You really need Adium, iChat, and Skype to communicate to all your iPeeps. But, in order to minimize the amount of time and effort you need pick one 2.0 net as your home base. This is where the majority of your updates and networking happens.
For me it’s Twitter. I have the most contacts on twitter and find it to be the best resource for tech updates, random geekiness, and general good times, including drunk tweets (:p) But, I must say there are a lot of fun times on Pownce. The ability to share photos, vids, and muxtapes is pretty awesome. I do think that Pownce is underrated, and I think in the next year it we will see it really catch on. But for some reason I don’t think that the Twitterati will ever abandon the little bird, no matter how many times they see him upside down or robotized or 404ed.
What’s your 2.0 home base? What do you find good or bad about this trifecta of 2.0? Do you use Twitter, Pownce, and Facebook? Opinions? Thoughts? Or comments on my drumming skills?
PS. Why am I sat in front of an uber kit? Kind of random isn’t it? More sweet photos and a special DIY photo blog from my latest shoot with uber Vancouver drummer, Jesse Godin this week!
Dennis Bjørn Petersen
May 6, 2008 at 11:31 PMI prefer twitter, though I rarely visit twitter.com. I use twhirl instead.
I used to double-post all my tweets to pownce, but I stopped doing that over a month ago. It felt a bit spammy to do that.
FB is just there, I use it from time to time, but not much.
FriendFeed isn’t me either.
Christopher Blunck
May 7, 2008 at 5:06 AMIt’s a tough call because the different sites really serve different purposes. I like the instantanteous (but archived) nature of twitter a LOT. I also like how rich their web API is. When you add in the Jabber feed stuff they’ve done you could make a case that they’re the most third-party-app-friendly social site out there.
I don’t have a home base yet because I’m still exploring all of these networking sites, but it seems like Tumblr is emerging as a leader. It’s my index of networking sites and I like how you can embed different types of media. But then again I tend to post mostly photo-related content (via Flickr and my blog), so I’m biased in favor of a site that can embed your content on their page.
I hate FB – UI is awful and the signal-to-noise ratio is really low. I don’t care about your low-res bar hopping flashed-out photos and what’s scribbled on your wall. It’s all drivel anyway.
steelie
May 7, 2008 at 5:26 AMI really like the idea of Twitter and Pownce but really know anyone on either and, as a father of two little ones, I find it hard to find time to explores. Plus, I like keeping to a bit of online anonymity and Pownce doesn’t appear to let you go by an alias… well, one that doesn’t have a last name anyway…
I use Facebook a lot. Mostly to keep in touch with or track of friends and family I don’t get to see very often due to my “Dad” duties. I have it open all day in a Safari tab… I’m not actively on it all day but I check it multiple times.
Actually, I use Twitter mostly to update my Facebook status… and I used to cross-post over to to Vox, by Six Apart — my main 2.h0me — but as Dennis said, I felt a bit spammy.
Wish I knew more about world 2.0 so I didn’t feel like I was stumbling all the time.
New to your blog, BTW.
Love it.
Justin
May 7, 2008 at 5:48 AMI have never understood Twitter. I guess that means I’m not an uber geek… but it just doesn’t do it for me. I use Facebook for the same reasons that steelie said. As for Pownce, maintaing one full on web profile is enough. Duplicating some/all of that to Pownce would be a bit mind-numbing for me.
James
May 7, 2008 at 7:04 AMI’m all about Twitter. I managed to get off Facebook when I found LinkedIn. Last.fm is pretty wonderful. I guess I like networks where there’s some point or common thread tying the community together. Facebook used to have that, when it was all college students, but now it’s the same huge mess as the-network-that-shall-not-speak-its-name.
Jonic
May 7, 2008 at 8:49 AMTwitter… Although I haven’t been too active there lately… It took me about a year to really get into Twitter, but now that I get it, I love the place… Could probably survive without it, but I’d feel like I’d be missing a huge chunk of “the conversation”…
Brandon
May 7, 2008 at 9:44 AMI prefer Pownce. I like its functionality, and there seems to be less junk in comparison to Twitter. The problem is, none of my real friends use Pownce; I’ve had to make pretend ones.
Mitchell
May 7, 2008 at 12:56 PMHmm, I use both Twitter and Facebook, but not Pownce. I use twitter to keep in touch with internet friends (ie, ones I’ve never actually met in real life), and Facebook to keep in touch with people that I talk to outside of the internet.
Luckily, very few people are both on Twitter and my friend on Facebook (for me at least).
I just remembered, Lisa, you’re one of those few. Congrats XD
Rebecca
May 7, 2008 at 1:29 PMI know there’s a HUGE population in Vancouver who swears by Jaiku over Twitter any day. I have an account but I just toss all my feeds over there, it’s a big “noisier” than Twitter, kinda like Pownce.
Chris
May 7, 2008 at 2:23 PMI like Twitter the most, because of the bazillion-and-a-half different ways you can interact with it. Then Facebook because none of my irl peeps use anything geekier. Then Pownce, but the only real reason I still use it is because of the client for Windows. I also have a Jaiku acct that I don’t check much because it seems rather closed-off imo. “What? You have to open a browser to use it? Get out of the city!”
Martin
May 7, 2008 at 4:31 PMI like FB, why?.
I blog in WordPress.com and I share some photos in Flickr and in Picasa, also, I use Last.Fm. So, FB is a perfect plataform to join all my Web 2.0 services.
I don’t like twitter, is frustrating to me the 140 chars. rule.
I think the Web 2.0, bring to us new life, a global life. Now you have the option to see more that your near circle of friends, or you can know people who share your interests.
@Lisa: Can you really play the drums or just Rockband Drums? :P
Raul
May 7, 2008 at 5:24 PMI signed on to Twitter around mid-April and now have easily about 1,300 tweets. But I do have a fairly decent Twitter follow-ship if there’s such a word, and it allows me to have communications with geeks and friends alike (and with my geeky friends).
I think you should amend your post reflecting that you now know another person who is NOT on Facebook (e.g. ME). Yes, I confess. For all the geekiness that I’ve acquired in the last year of seriously blogging, I am NOT on Facebook. So sue me.
I am happy with Twitter, though. I also use Twhirl when I work from home ant TwitterFox when I’m using my laptop. And now I have my own domain and WordPress.com redirects to it.
Twitter (and blogging in general) is allowing me to create new forms of friendships, which I hope will endure. So, that’s the long story :) Hope you’re enjoying this gorgeous day, and see you hopefully soon!
Two Point Oh No He Didn’t! | Justin Cox's Mindless Chatter
May 7, 2008 at 6:44 PM[…] Mostly Lisa wrote about her use of the “big three” web 2.0 sites — Facebook, Twitter, and […]
Cayce
May 7, 2008 at 7:53 PMSo I’m not on facebook…
Twitter would be my home base of choice because I seem to get the most noise that way, I do love the Pownce more but it seems there are so few active members.
I also love Merlin Mann. You youlooknicetoday.com is Epic as well.
Dennis Bjørn Petersen
May 7, 2008 at 10:54 PMI agree with Rebecca about Jaiku. It’s just one big noise. I’ve given it a few chances (it’s Scandinavian after all).
It doesn’t find my feed, why can’t I add friends from my Gmail address book?
Come to think of it…it’s Finnish…yes that explains it ;)
Fubiz
May 8, 2008 at 6:46 AMCongrats for the template…
Apoorv Khatreja
May 8, 2008 at 9:11 AMWho isn’t on Facebook?
I’m not. I mean I am not after a few recent developments.
Seriously I am happy to be out of the Facebook network. Even though with all the privacy settings and new features, Facebook scores higher than other competitors like MySpace, the applications and tons of messages and wall posts became irritating. I had decided to ignore Facebook completely, and made a filter on my GMail so that all mails from Facebook directly landed in trash. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I got kicked from Facebook for the most stupid reason ever.
The Power of Twitter » Vancouver Blog Miss 604
May 8, 2008 at 11:03 AM[…] Pownce vs Twitter – Mostly Lisa […]
Ignacio
May 8, 2008 at 11:12 AMI’ve been trying out Pownce recently because of posts like yours, and it seems pretty cool actually, but all the people I know are on Twitter so there’s no point on migrating for now.
With Jaiku it was just the same, it’s about the people who are using the service, not the features.
As for Facebook, it’s uber popular over here since it’s been translated into Spanish, but I just consider it a waste of time for me. I think it’ll be useful once I want to reunite with old friends, but I’m still in high school.
Myspace was never popular in my country and just by looking at its user base and design… erm, thanks but no thanks.
fotoeins
May 8, 2008 at 11:46 AMWhile I should be spending time analyzing data, I’m investigating these social platforms, which in two ways is somewhat incongruous, since (i) I live on the opposite side of the globe from where a huge chunk of my friends are, and (ii) I’m on my usual transcon flight on a 3 to 6 week timescale. FB’s an interesting platform with the imbedded vids/pix/chat, but gods, there’s a lot of app clutter, from which I’m hardly immune. I just joined twitter to see how it’s going to work, but that may be more of a function for whom (or whom *else*) I’m updating. I do like being able to twitter-up with the GTalk chat interface.
Dr. Voyeurism, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Twitter » Coffee on the Keyboard
May 8, 2008 at 12:07 PM[…] deals with it, partly because I’ve got some Obsessive-Compulsive tendencies. Then Mostly Lisa wrote about the “big three”—Twitter, Pownce, and Facebook, according to her and got them back to the front of my […]
mcpaige
May 8, 2008 at 3:13 PMyes! you said drunk tweets (@dweets) its really going to take off now.
I only keep up with Twitter and Facebook nowadays.
ChrisFizik
May 8, 2008 at 6:23 PMgreat analysis and some surprising points from you — your choice for the big 3 (pownce kru must be happy to know it made the cut) and settling on Twitter (though I know you do use it alot…so I guess it fits)
FB remains unappealing and lame to me ..just not workin …I give it a chance every so often. Twitter has been infectious and brilliant for me in a nanoblogging network sort of way. Pownce does have potential, but quality geeky content / elite userbase aside, it’s starting to feel like ‘the-network-that-shall-not-speak-its-name’
Tayfun
May 8, 2008 at 7:19 PM“The Rhythm n’ Flow of the 2-Point-Ohs”
How long did it take you to come up with that? Even Kanye can’t spit it like that.
I use facebook (apps free virgin) and myspace (can’t fight the masses). I never really got the point of twitter and pounce.
Mel
May 9, 2008 at 9:23 AMI use facebook because I keep up with my friends on it. I’m a terrible emailer, but I’m not half-bad at remembering to comment on some walls every now and then. It’s also nice for the people you care enough about to wish a happy birthday and see how they’re doing once a year, but not enough to actually have their birthday on your calendar and remember to send them an email.
I started using twitter, but only know one person who has it. She only got it because I convinced her it was neat, and she hasn’t twitter in about 20 days, so I feel kind of dumb twittering to myself. I really do think the concept is cool, though, so I persist. With so few characters in each update, though, I don’t even know how to go about finding people that are interesting on it. So I guess I haven’t really embraced it yet, but I do think it’s cool to have my latest twitters on my blog.
I love Last.fm, because I love statistics. I haven’t met very many people on it, but I’ve found a ton of music that I now cannot live without. And I relentlessly press refresh every Sunday night until my weekly stats appear.
Raul
May 9, 2008 at 9:26 AM@ Mel – you can Tweet with me if you want (@hummingbird604).
@ those who use FB… WHY?????
@ Lisa – YAY for drunken tweets (dweets?) – Great post – did I say this already? :P
MotionGroove.com
May 9, 2008 at 10:23 AMI use FaceBook for family and friends, good way to share photos and videos. I guess they could just read my blog to see my photos and what I am up to but that’s mostly what I use. I use Twitter a bit. I think we are now going into communication overload. Don’t you think? I’m guilty of it this as well of course, but damn.
Let’s look at it, home phone, fax, cell phone, email, instant messengers, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace and the list will surely go on. Do we need this much communication? What did we do in the early 1990s without all these means of communicating with each other? Makes you think a little, lol.
Mostly Lisa
May 9, 2008 at 12:14 PM@Pasquale — agreed. i like 10000000000+1 bands. wanna hear how i got super drunk for soooo long and listened to them?
@Dennis — twhirl seems to be quite popular among twitterers. i tried to love it, but after 3 mins of looking at it’s garish design my left eye started to pulsate. agreed on the friend feed. enough is enough.
@Christopher — ah yes Tumblr. i really should have mentioned it. i do love Tumblr and was an earlier adopter of it (& Jake and Amir) as well and used it to post all my videos. but after a few months it became just another site i had to update in addition to my blog. i think it’s a great blogging alternative, but i wish you could comment on posts.
Flicker is the bomb. The most awesome community on the web (besides Viddler). wow, that was a bold statement. ah, i don’t care. i love Flickr.
@steelie — thanks for the blog l0v3. FB is the easiest social net to access and connect with people that is for sure. and it is pretty awesome to have a small (or in some people’s case, way too big) window into their lives. and if you wanna know more about the 2.0 world look no further! i’ll let you know if you’re missing anything. i’ll make it my duty or something more official like that.
@Justin — i’ve crossed your name off the uber geek list. sorry.
@James — Lastfm is soo awesome. i love having an archive of my listening habits, even if it is embarrassing at times….
@Jonic — ahh me too. i hate tweeting lame things, so when i’m not doing anything interesting i don’t tweet and totally get outta the twitter loop. like what do those hash marks mean? #idunno?
@Brandon — i have more pretend friends than real ones. *sigh. it’s ok though, iFriends are sometimes more fun and interesting to talk to. i mean IM to.
@Mitchell — oh gosh. wow. is there a special award for that? a special hat? or some donuts? question: are there Krispy Cremes in Canada?
@Rebecca — i know you were big on Jaiku a few months ago. have you changed your mind? i should take another look. if only because of Leo.
@Chris — i knooooow. browsers are totally for the weak.
@Martin — i like your avatar. also, yes the 140 character limit is soooo frustrating, especially since i like to ad sooooo many ‘o’s to everything and make lots of sound effects. gah! ack! ewwww! errrrg! rarrrrr!
i wish i could play the drums. sadly, i only know two grooves. Billy Jean and a latin groove. i can play the flute and guitar if that makes up for it.
@Raul — so many tweets! i can tell you are addicted. another non-FB person! good for you. congrats on the domain. you go with your bad self!
@Cayce — no really? zomg. Merlin Mann is *sigh* sooo dreamy. Inbox Zero, I will conquer you!
@Dennis — :wink: back
@Fubiz — it’s not really mine.
@Apoorv — another one. sweet! keep trashing those invites and stay clear of the uber time sucker!
@Ignacio — that’s the problem. i love Pownce, but no one is on it. when i was in Mexico did notice that it was translated into Spanish. very cool. i hate English-only nets! Espanol FTW!
@fotoeins — app clutter is the worst. thing, ever. i notice you just joined twitter. what do you think?
@mcpaige — stop shamlessly promoting yourself. it makes me sick.
@ChrisFizik — thought some pownce love would get Kevin Rose to finally reply to my emails. gosh. i wonder what social net Voldemort would use?
@Tayfun — haha. quite a while to be honest. tying in a random photo to content is never easy.
@Mel — agreed. giving and getting FB birthday wishes is one of the best things about FB. i read your tweets if that counts for anything. you were the one that turned me on to Lastfm and i love you for it!
PS i was just thinking about that Stop sign with Voldemort written on it. send me the URL again so i can have a chuckle.
@Raul — you did, but it’s always appreciated.
@MotionGroove.com — it’s weird how some people just don’t get blogs. i have some friends that get all my updates through FB and don’t even know i have a blog. shocking i know!
i dunno what we did before. soup cans & string???
Mark
May 9, 2008 at 12:32 PMI have to say apart from blogging I have never really gotten into all this web 2.o stuff with the like of twitter and facebook etc.
I feel like Mel in that I never really have that many people that I know on there. And all the people that I do know that are on there are people that I haven’t seen in a while and therefore are not really the people that i would ‘twitter’ too.
I think I will stick to blogging for now!
Rey
May 11, 2008 at 7:56 AMI like them both. Twitter is fun to update. Pownce is fun to share stuff. Why choose when you can have it all? Use Firefox or Flock, set multiple tabs as ur homepage and Wha-Laa! Instant Web 2.0 coolness!
Matt
May 11, 2008 at 7:45 PMNever used Pownce, but use Twitter and FB quite a bit. Using Digsby to keep track of both as well as IM programs.
Ryan
May 12, 2008 at 12:03 PMI’m on tons too. But I only semi-actively use twitter, pownce, friedfeed and sometimes fb. The trick is to use apps that make it look like your there all the time though you really rarely are. Example, on any social site I can, I feed my wordpress blog and tweets and update my status with hellotxt. I’m always looking for more trixie things like that.
Mostly Lisa
May 12, 2008 at 3:51 PM@Mark — aww you wrote 2.0 with an “O”. makes more sense when you think of it. def stick to blogging. bloggers FTW!
@Pas — shh!
@Rey — good point. i’ve never used Flock. i suppose i should have a gander. i’m just such a Safari stick in the mud.
@Matt — ahh Digsby, keeps coming up. i should look at that too. how do you find it in comparison so other IMs like Adium, iChat, Meebo etc?
@Ryan — i remember meeting you at WP camp! hizzah! friend feed is all the rage these days, but my money is on twitter still. i like trixie things!!
Skiant
May 12, 2008 at 7:49 PM@Raul – I use FB to stay in touch with friends i don’t see anymore since i’ve changed of school, and other iFriends i’ve met on the Internet.
At first i was VERY skeptical, but actually, FB is quite alright. I just ignore friends requests from stupid apps or random people.
Except geeky girls. lolwut!?
Matt
May 13, 2008 at 9:32 AMHonestly its the only one that I’ve used. I like that it integrated FB, although maybe the others do too. I did have the meebo chat widget on my website for while but I took it off. No one chatted and it was taking valuable real estate (so to speak).
Kaysha
May 18, 2008 at 6:29 PMI use them all, tw,fb,myspace,hi5…
But finally my preference goes to twitter & facebook… Myspace is good for promotion tho