GigaOM » Pownce

Qik Gets Legit On the iPhone, Loses Core Feature

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:00:44 +0000

It seems like just yesterday Kevin Rose was teasing us all with tantalizing tweets about an upcoming Qik iPhone application that would allow you to stream live video from your device to the web. Of course, that was before the iPhone 3GS, which brought actual video recording capabilities. Somehow, in those heady, optimistic days, it still seemed possible that the Qik app might make it into the App Store.

Time passed, we grew older, experienced the harsh disappointment of a fickle and dubiously motivated App Store approval process, and Qik came to jailbroken phones, as do all of the good apps that actually do things iPhone owners would like to be able to do with the devices we overpaid for. There seemed to be little hope of ever seeing Qik in the App Store. But look, that’s exactly where it is (iTunes link), as of today.

Cause for celebration? Could be, but I’d say reserved celebration at best, because while Qik is indeed in the App Store, and it does indeed allow you to record video and post it to the service with your iPhone 3GS (stick to the jailbreak version, 3G owners), it doesn’t let you actually stream live video, which is sort of the point of Qik in the first place, isn’t it? I mean, I can already post videos directly from the camera app to YouTube, and personally, I don’t need to worry about using another recorded video web service.

Also, you have to have a Wi-Fi connection to even upload your videos at all, which all but eradicates any remaining interest I may have had in the app. To be fair, this is probably another example of the AT&T monkey on Apple’s shoulder steering policy, but it doesn’t make the pill any easier to swallow. The FCC can’t drive a wedge between these two soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.

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Clearing The Cache – Success or Failure Edition

Scott Blitstein — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:55:31 +0000

Like many of us, I spend quite a lot of time on the web and come across a staggering number of interesting things. In Clearing The Cache I pull out some of my favorites and share them with you here.

In light of the Values of n acquisition, GigaOM wonders Will Twitter Become Your Personal Assistant

blah, blah! technology declares Pownce is Dead

Friendly Bit says Follow the 10 ground rules, or fail on the web

CRM Provider Entellium files chapter 11

Managing Leadership advises on Exploiting Success (via Execupundit)

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Six Apart and Pownce: Micro-blogging FTW?

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:40:44 +0000

The closure of Pownce, which was announced Monday via posts by co-founder Leah Culver and her new employer, blog software company Six Apart, didn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who’s followed Pownce since its launch last year. Despite help from co-founders like Kevin Rose of Digg and usability guru Daniel Burka, the service never really found an audience, or at least not one big enough to make a go of it. In the end, Pownce was just too much like Twitter (and Jaiku and Plurk, for that matter); the added features it had — including the ability to transfer files — weren’t enough to set it apart in people’s minds, much less turn it into a must-have utility.

So why did Six Apart, the blogging software provider founded by husband-and-wife team Ben and Mena Trott, decide to buy the company? It’s possible that they just saw Culver and her fellow Powncer Mike Malone as valuable hires in the programming department, and decided to acqu-hire them, as Google has done with so many startup founders over the years. But while the Pownce service is being shut down, could its features live on inside Six Apart and its Vox blogging service? I think that’s a very real possibility. Culver, for example, notes in her blog post that she hopes to “come back with something much better in 2009.”

Twitter and its ilk are often referred to as platforms for “micro-blogging,” because (in the right hands at least) a 140-character message posted to the service can be almost as good as a blog post. More than one blogger has said that the frequency of their blog posts has decreased since they began Twittering, and some have given up full-blown blogging altogether. Others, however (myself included), use Twitter as a kind of feeder system for their blogs. Not only do they use it to find ideas, links and conversation that spark longer blog posts, but they use it in reverse — to alert potential readers to their posts. And in many cases the conversation extends from the blog to the chat service and vice-versa. There’s an almost symbiotic relationship between the two services, with each feeding off and benefiting from the other.

Six Apart has made a number of acquisitions that indicate the company is thinking about how to extend its services, including social media application maker Apperceptive. Much like its blog software competitor Automattic, the home of WordPress (see disclosure below), the company seems to be looking for tools that can be incorporated into its platforms to make them more robust as media publishing services. Could a Twitter-style tool be part of that vision for Six Apart? It would make a lot of sense, just as WordPress buying Buddypress (a startup that added social networking functionality to the platform) and launching a Twitter-style chat theme called Prologue made sense.

There are already a variety of plugins and tools that allow WordPress and Movable Type bloggers to incorporate Twitter into their blogs, either by posting their messages automatically in a sidebar, or in some cases, by allowing them to post to Twitter from their blog dashboard. But having someone who understands how such services operate could help Six Apart integrate these kinds of features more fully into their platforms, as well as making it easier to develop new ones that could merge micro-blogging and “real” blogging. At the end of the day, Six Apart and Automattic aren’t just blogging services but content-management and content-publishing companies, and Twitter messages are just another form of content that needs to be managed and published.

Auttomatic is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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Goodbye Pownce, I Hardly Used Ya

Om Malik — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:24:08 +0000

Pownce, a microblogging service started by Leah Culver and others back in May 2007, has been acquired by blogging software giant, SixApart and will be shutdown. Culver and other members of the Pownce team are going to work for San Francisco-based Six Apart, well known for products such as MoveableType and TypePad. What it means — negligible or no money changed hands.

Pownce seemed like a pretty cool idea, but it never got any major traction, losing out to the simpler and more popular Twitter. I used the service for a few months but then lost interest, and so did many of my friends. From Culver’s post, it seems that SixApart is going to incorporate Pownce’s microblogging technology into its blogging platforms. It makes a lot of sense for SixApart to buy a microblogging platform, since microblogging is one of the faster growing parts of the “social media ecosystem.”

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How Twitter is a Communications Game Changer

Aliza Sherman — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:52:19 +0000

It is no secret that I love Twitter. I have to admit that besides email, Twitter is my most important communications tool, particularly for my business but not exclusively so. The more I see where social media and online communications is going, the more I realize how Twitter has transformed the landscape in both big and subtle ways.

An obvious example of Twitter’s impact is how it is quickly becoming part of our lexicon. Even mainstream media is referring to the Twitterstream, using Twitter to gauge public sentiment, and referring to people’s Twitter pages. Twitter has moved beyond being the news and is now helping to source news for many reporters.

Here are some other ways Twitter has had game-changing impact:

1. Reinvented the threaded messaging board

If you think back to the old online forums before and after threaded messaging and then look at your Twitter page, look familiar? Twitter is loosely threaded messages that are a dynamic blend of conversation with direct references to others in the discussion and broadcasting where the message or the link is the focus.

From watching some of my clients trying to grasp the concept and flow of Twitter, it is clear that this communications display is atypical and can be challenging to follow. Learning to dive into a Twitterstream and come out with a cohesive dialogue or valuable information takes time. For the uninitiated, a threaded message board makes far more sense, however, once you get the hang of the fabric of tweets, you learn to follow the threads, jump to people’s Twitter pages to catch up with the conversation, and you hone your skills of zeroing in on certain Twitterers to pick out nuggets of useful information. Twitter has changed the flow of conversation and information.

2. Spawning imitators

First there was Jaiku and Pownce, then Plurk and Kwippy, all jumping on the microblogging bandwagon, each trying to differentiate themselves from Twitter yet mostly feeling like Twitter knockoffs. Even in their attempt to stand out, they stacked on features or capabilities meant to make them “more robust” than Twitter but ended up diluting the purity of Twitter’s simplicity. Some users, however, preferred the extra bells and whistles of the imitators as well as the stability of some of those other services.

Next came the Twitteresque sites that used the Twitter conversation starter model but focused on specific topics such as blippr where you microblog reviews of arts and entertainment or Reporting On where journalists simply announce what they are reporting on at any given time. Twitter’s micro messaging has become a main feature of many new sites and applications.

3. Becoming an add-on for other tools

As I began reviewing project management tools for WWD, I was taken by Joint Contact’s integration of Twitter into their featureset. Suddenly, Twitter was a feature add-on for applications where communications was key i.e. project management. Email, message boards and the usual communications tools were no longer enough. Other project management tools have promised Twitter integration in future iterations. Scott Blitstein also wrote about Twitter integration with your favorite productivity apps.

4. Transforming internal company communications

Since I’m not in need of enterprise level communications tools, I haven’t actually tried these out, however, there are now Twittereque apps for the enterprise such as Yammer and present.ly. Mike Gunderloy blogged about this new trend and referenced a presentation by my Twitterfriend @Pistachio at Pistachio Consulting.

5. Forcing us to do more with less

When I make presentations about Twitter, a common question is “why are the posts so short?” Why 140 characters or less? M-marketing and M-comm, I tell them. Twitter laid the groundwork for mainstreaming very short and concise messaging in preparation of communicating efficiently on mobile devices.

Maybe the vision of Twitter wasn’t necessarily to prep us so we could properly conduct M-marketing tactics over time, however, we are all gaining the skill of reducing our thoughts into tight, taut messages that read easily over our handheld devices.

6. Affecting the way we blog

Almost weekly, a popular blogger announces that he or she is no longer going to blog or no longer going to blog as frequently because of Twitter. Or that Twitter has changed the way they blog or the way they feel about blogging. For better or for worse, Twittering makes blogging feel like a bog both for the blogger and the reader once they are used to swimming in the free flowing Twitterstream.

7. Influencing our communications style

The Twitter Effect on how we communicate is going to be even more obvious than how email communications has forever changed the way we write. I’ve heard people say that they find themselves speaking in Tweets – short, clipped phrases where they say as much as they can in fewer words. They don’t do it on purpose, it is just how their mind works now that they’ve been Twittering for a long period of time. Twitter has created new verbs for us. We now have “Twitterfriends.” We “tweet” instead of post. When we talk about referencing others in our tweets we are “atting them” or “@ing” them. When you want someone to contact you, you can just tweet a message asking them to “@” you or “DM” you (for direct message). To gain Twitter skills means that you have to deliberately let go of old communication styles and rewire your brain to accommodate the new ones required to immerse yourself productively in the Twitterstream.

8. Ever-expanding uses

Twitter isn’t just a place where you tell the world what you are doing. Its uses have expanded beyond a broadcast tool to a listening device and filter of information. It is also a marketing tool; a market research tool; a customer outreach and customer service tool; and instant focus group; a tech troubleshooting resource; and the list goes on and on.

In Twitter’s undiluted simplicity, it has the uncanny feature of being several things to each person and several new things as people’s imaginations take hold after a few weeks of Twittering. We have yet to see all of the possibilities of Twittering for our personal lives and for our careers and businesses. We are just scratching the surface.

How have you used or seen Twitter used in new and different ways, particularly for business?

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The FCC Wants to Know what Mark Cuban Thinks

Liz Gannes — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:39:59 +0000

The FCC is holding another one of its hearings on broadband at Carnegie Mellon on Monday and it looks like a good time (no really). A session (Word doc) on the future of digital media features provocateur Mark Cuban, David Eun from Google, the CEO of the American Cable Association, as well as interesting new startups Conviva and WhereverTV. Anyone in the Pittsburgh area want to check it out for us?

Update: Webcast will be here.

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Broadcasting to Your Social Networks

Aliza Sherman — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:00:58 +0000

I’ve been working with clients to set up social media “satellite sites” as I call them to extend their brand and take advantage of the exponential power of social networking for reaching out to consumers. The question I hear time and time again is “How in the world can I manage all these social networks if I can’t even get to the rest of my work?”

I know we are all crunched for time. Sometimes, I don’t even know how I keep up with all of my writing and blogging, client projects and social networking sites. But I have found some cool “social aggregation broadcasting tools” that are making at least some of my tasks easier to handle.

What is a Social Aggregation Broadcasting Tool?

Okay, I have to admit, I just made that term up but I think it covers what I’m trying to convey. There are tools out there that help you aggregate your social networking sites for the purpose of broadcasting a message to more places with fewer steps hence Social Aggregation Broadcasting Tools (SABT? lol!).

These applications are a combination of standalone apps like HelloTxt or ShareThis along with the connectivity features within many of the social networking tools. Some SABTs help you pull all, most or many of your social media sites into one place so all you have to do to broadcast a message the ones you’ve aggregated is to post once within the SABT and the tool distributes that post to your MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. – so easy. Something like ShareThis facilitates a slightly different type of action – allowing your readers to do the distribution of your content for you so I would consider this a Passive SABT.

So I would say there are Active SABTs, Passive SABTs and Integrated SABT functionality like what you get on Utterz, for example. When I post an Utterz, I have my Connections set up so that it automatically posts to my blog and my Twitter page. I can also have it post to my Blip.TV account, Pownce, among others.

Are you with me so far?

On the flip side, Social Aggregation Broadcasting Tools are different from Social Aggregation Listening Tools (SALT?!?) that are sites like FriendFeed that pull together your feeds and the feeds of your “friends” so you can hear what they are Twittering about, Facebook statusing (?!), ad nauseum. But let’s not forget the feed features now on so many of the social networking sites made popular by Facebook and quickly adopted by MySpace, LinkedIn and many others. I’d call those Integrated SALT functionality.

So Where is the Time Management Aspect Here?

Clearly SABTs are the time savers here. Although having your friend feeds from all of their social networks brought into one place for “easy reading” must save someone out there some time, I am still finding SALTs to be the proverbial firehose that I’m trying desperately to drink from before I choke.

Another type of broadcast tool I have not mentioned because it is more of an add-on – although it does save you time – is the tool that allows you to easily post to one of your blogs or social networking sites. These would be tools like Twhirl that lets you post to several Twitter accounts easily. Or any bookmarklet such as Typepad‘s that let’s you post a link and excerpt of an article or blog post you are reading to your own blog or Tweetburner that does the same for Twitter. Or Twitterfeed that let’s you enter your blog RSS and automatically checks your blog for new posts and Tweets them.

Let’s call these Narrow SABTs for right now, not because they are narrow in power but because they are narrow in reach yet still useful. They aren’t mass broadcasting tools but, of course, once you have set up for SABTs properly, posting to your blog once, for example, could trigger a series of automatic actions to broadcast that post with just one click of the Publish button.

The key to remember is that you only need 1 or 2 of each at most to pretty much cover all your social networking bases. So instead of posting to 30 different sites, you shouldn’t be posting more than 4-6 times at most to get full broadcasting distribution. And for those using the most popular social networks, you can probably get that down to 2-3 posts. That means you publish the same post in 2-3 SABTs and those 2-3 actions then reach over 10x that many sites instantly. Then you add on the Passive SABTs and the potential reach of your post grows exponentially as others share your content for you.

These are the SABTs that I personally use.

Active SABTs

1. HelloTxt – Covers Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku, Pownce, Facebook, Plaxo, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Meemi, Beemood, Gozub, Frazr, Numpa, Mexicodiario, Fanfou, Feecie, Hi5, Bebo, Myspace, Brightkite, at press time

Passive SABTs

1. ShareThis – Allows others to share your content on Reddit, Facebook, del.icio.us, Technorati, Yahoo! Bookmarks, Windows Live, SlashDot, N4G, Blinklist, ma.gnolia, Digg, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Google Bookmarks, Yahoo! MyWeb, Propeller, Newsvine, Mixx, Furl, Mister Wong, Faves, Simpy, Yigg, Fresqui, Care2, Kirtsy…

2. AddThis – Readers can post your share your content on Google Bookmarks, Delicious, Digg, MySpace, Facebook, Furl, Yahoo MyWeb, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Newsvine, Live, Technorati, Twitter, Yahoo Bookmarks, myAOL, Ask, Fark, Slashdot, Propeller, Mixx, Multiply, Simpy, Blogmarks, Diigo, Faves (Bluedot), Spurl, Link-a-Gogo, Mister Wong, FeedMeLinks, Backflip, Magnolia, Seganlo, Netvouz, Tailrank, Blinklist, and..

Integrated SABT features

1. Utterz – Let’s you form “Connections” with Blogger, LiveJournal, Tumblr, TypePad, Twitter, WordPress, Movable Type, Flickr, Yahoo Groups, Twitxr, Drupal, LiveSpaces, YouTube, MetaWeblog API, Pownce and Blip.TV as of press time

Narrow SABTs

1. Twhirl – Have more than one Twitter account (like me)? This desktop app let’s you open a tiny window for each to cross post when/where appropriate.

2. Tweetburner – If you are reading something interesting that is worth tweeting about, click this bookmarklet, add your comments, then Tweet.

3. Twitterfeed – Use this tool app to link your blog and Twitter account so a single blog post can Tweet automatically.

What are you using to save time and manage your social network postings?

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What Makes a Good Mobile Application Great

Jason Harris — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:45:35 +0000

What separates the good from the bad in the mobile web space? More importantly, what makes a good mobile application truly great? There are lots of examples out there, but what can mobile developers learn from them? Here are some common sense guidelines:

Mimic the desktop UI

Each web site or web application that we use in this Web 2.0 world has a feel that we’re used to; the mobile version of web sites should merely be an extension of that experience. Web developers should use the same fonts, color schemes and buttons wherever possible to make us feel at home. For an example, check out Mobile Facebook (here on the left), which uses the same blue hues and fonts as the Facebook I use everyday in Firefox. Facebook has also made it easy to click on a friend’s name and pull up their profile page with a mini-feed, contact information, and other Facebook features we know and love.

Good examples: Mobile Flickr, Mobile Google Reader and Pownce Mobile.

Strip it, strip it real good

A great mobile web site is a stripped-down, more functional version of its original incarnation, and simplicity is king — all unnecessary graphics should be be excluded. In terms of screen flow, content should be presented first, with navigation placed at the bottom of each page. Having to scroll past navigation to get to the real meat of a web page is the bane of any mobile user’s existence.

Good examples: Mobile Twitter, Google and Mobile Wunderground.

It’s the hardware, stupid

Smart mobile application developers utilize the hardware to its full extent. One example is the Nokia platform, which is known for being completely transparent and vulnerable to developers and has subsequently yielded some great applications.

Good examples: JoikuSpot will use the built-in Wi-Fi to turn your WAP cell phone into a wireless access point; ShoZu will use the N95′s GPS to automatically geo-tag photos and upload them to Flickr; Nokia Sports Tracker will use the GPS module to give you a map and stats about your workouts.

Know thy platform

Mobile web applications should be written natively for each device. Java applications, including GMail for mobile and others, are quirky and routinely lock up, requiring the user to either exit or restart. Having to write apps for multiple platforms may be tedious, but will result in happy users.

Google was able to take Google Maps to an entirely new level of usability by adding “My Location,” which uses cell-phone towers to give an approximate location and has been called a “poor man’s GPS.” It’s only accurate to around 1,000 meters, but saves keystrokes when trying to find a local pizza place.

Unfortunately with most mobile platforms, especially here in the U.S., hardware is limited by cell-phone service providers that subsidize handsets. But Google’s Android and the Open Handset Alliance will help put in motion a new era of “openness,” and consumers will be the direct benefactors.

And of course, Apple’s SDK is coming out soon, which will undoubtedly spawn numerous touch-based applications.

My prediction: The iPhone will be the most hotly contested mobile application platform and the App Store will be full of highly functional and downright fun applications to add to your precious iPhone.

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SmartShopper: listens to and prints your shopping list

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:08:55 +0000

If you just can’t make the transition to a fully digital shopping list on a PDA, cell phone, UMPC, or full-sized Tablet PC with MindManager, how about a little compromise to get you halfway there? Ubergizmo points out the SmartShopper: a voice recording device that will recognize your spoken shopping list items and then print out a small paper copy of what it heard before your trip to the store. At $150, I’m thinking it should read my mind for the shopping list, but hey: I have high expectations.

I tend to use the simple Notes function in Windows Mobile on my XV6700 smartphone when I need to jot a shopping list: how about you?

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For Town of Pepperell, future is fixed wireless

Om Malik — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 07:02:18 +0000

The Boston Globe reports on yet another tiny town building its own wireless network at a cost of between $120-to- $160,000.

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