Six Apart acquires and shuts down Pownce

December 1, 2008 | Anthony Ha | Comments | |

Blogging company Six Apart has acquired micro-blogging startup Pownce for undisclosed financial terms. It looks like one of those acquisitions where the buyer was more interested in the people than the product — the Pownce service will shut down in two weeks.

The San Francisco startup was the brainchild of Digg founder Kevin Rose, Leah Culver and Daniel Burka (also a Digg employee). It’s a micro-blogging service kind of like Twitter, but it allowed users to share much more than brief messages, including embeddable photos, videos and mp3s. Despite those advantages, Pownce’s traffic stalled while Twitter’s skyrocketed, according to data from Compete.

Pownce is probably the second-best-known micro-blogging service around, and its disappearance should solidify Twitter’s supremacy. Of course, Twitter’s challenge has less to do with trouncing the competition and more with making money and attracting users outside the tech crowd — now that it finally appears to have solved its reliability problems.

Culver and Mike Malone, who were Pownce’s main developers, will move on to similar roles at Six Apart. Though Pownce won’t be a part of Six Apart, you can be sure the two will be working on something related to the “rebalancing” effort that Six Apart chief executive Chris Alden mentioned when he explained why he was laying off 8 percent of the company.

Rose and Burka will stay on as advisers to Six Apart.

In the meantime, Pownce says it created export tools so people can send their archived updates to blogs and elsewhere. (Go here to generate your export file.) That’s a nice gesture, but it’s hard to imagine Pownce users will be happy about this news, especially with a relatively short window before the service shuts down. Particularly bummed out will be users who paid for a pro account — Pownce says it will email them with more info soon, so let’s hope they get their money back.

Pownce briefly went down last month, with an announcement accompanied by a photo of a French Bulldog. Looks like the bulldog will be taking up residence permanently.

Find out more on the Pownce Blog and Six Apart’s Blog.

Update: Pownce has just sent out an email to users explaining the shut down and directing Pro account holders to a special page on Six Apart. It looks like Pownce Pro users have two options if they wish to use Six Apart’s services: Get a free Vox account or a free year of TypePad Plus (a $90 value).

Pownce community manager Ariel Waldman also said in a comment below that “Pro users will have the option to receive a pro-rated refund.” More information on that at the bottom of this page.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • AJB
    Good riddence. Pownce was worthless.
  • The error page is t3h awes0mez

    http://tinyurl.com/pownce-ack

    Crazy mad kudos on putting the Ackbar in Acknowledge...
  • Yeah, Pownce had some of the best fail photos.
  • wow
  • When Twitter / Jaiku / Pownce (etc.) all came out around the same time, there was no way everyone could use all 3 services at once. They're redundant. Only one will rise to the top, and until a new "killer app" [egad] comes along, it looks like Twitter is the winner because everyone was already there first. In this case, simplicity (and being the early bird) trumped functionality (or reliability).
  • Agreed.
  • So, Six apart can lay off its work force but they have enough cash laying around to acquire a microblogging service and then shut it down. I'd be pretty pissed if I was recently laid off by Six apart.

    Asides from that, I hope this serves as a reminder as to what could happen if Twitter or some other service that is used by the public just disappears. We have no remorse but thankfully, they are at least providing export tools.
  • Google has been sitting on Jaiku, making everyone forget it's there.

    I'm waiting for the shoe to drop, with some type of "killer app" functionality wrapped into it. Maybe something that integrates with Google Docs, Blogger, and the GOffice suite to become an SMS-enabled Onenote killer.
  • BJ Upton
    That's not exactly Google's style.

    More likely, they forgot about it themselves.
  • The Twitter vs. Pownce success sounds similar to Google vs. Yahoo in terms of user experience. Perhaps the "excessive features" over-complicated the intentions of the end users.
  • Congrats on a good run, Leah and team.
  • BJK
    "So, Six apart can lay off its work force but they have enough cash laying around to acquire a microblogging service and then shut it down. I'd be pretty pissed if I was recently laid off by Six apart."

    No, those employees were obviously worth less per dollar than the ones they gained.
  • It makes me feel a little icky to see it phrased that way, but yes, presumably that was the thought process.
  • BJ Upton
    And let's face it, not exactly the great buyout for Pwnce they might have hoped for.

    "Hey, come jump on our sinking ship" isn't the best exit
  • Surprising news to say the least. Congrats to Mike and Leah for gaining good positions in Six Apart.
  • Saskwatch
    I liked Pownce for the "excessive features". It was a great way to send larger files to a group or to an individual. Now, I have to go back to http://drop.io or something.

    Lastly, I am a paid Pownce member. I feel screwed in the deal because I do not want the free TypePad for a year offer. Why would I replace a microblog (with targeted file sharing) with a full on blog? That does not make sense.
  • @Saskwatch We will be sending Pro users an email shortly with instructions. Pro users will have the option to receive a pro-rated refund.
  • Thanks for that update Ariel.
  • wow, wasn't expecting that.
  • SilentJay74
    @AJB Not really there were a ton of Apps that Twitter users liked, as in Twitter being more Mobile. Pownce had recently upped the file transfer amount for both basic and paid users. If you know how to use it, it was a great service. Pownce did have Mobile Apps but there were just way to many people that belonged to the Twitter Borg.
  • It's not a big loss at all. Quite a few others do the same thing. It was VERY redundant. I always saw the SAME posts on all my other sites........
  • Pownce was cool but I never used it for three reasons. 1) Redundancy as I began using Twitter and FriendFeed for everything, 2) I couldn't customize my profile with things like a custom domain (like Ning.com) and 3) initially users couldn't send files to people who weren't members. If Pownce had allowed off-network file sharing from the beginning I think they would have seen much higher 'early-adoption' numbers. Allowing people to pay for things like custom profiles and a custom domains would have allowed people to create communities around their micro-blogs. Maybe no one else wanted these features, but those were three things I would have gladly paid for..then again I paid for the what little Pownce did offer it's Pro accounts.

    At the end of the day I think Pownce was 'neither here, nor there' in terms of perception by the public. Why use Pownce if I have a full blog to do all of the same? or Why micro-blog on Pownce when it offers room for a 'full' blog? I know I asked myself both of those questions everytime I fired up my PownceMonkey.
  • congrats to the Pownce team - they are joining a great group
  • ezezez
    Pownce? Good use of VC right there....

    1) unique technology = nope
    2) patents = nope
    3) consistent and predictable revenue = nope
    4) left over funds in some bank account = probably worth "acquiring"
  • andrewhyde
    Not a title I was expecting to see today.
  • At first sight, I liked the more "social' approach of Pownce over the approach of Twitter. But in the end Twitter offers a lot more functionality (through its API, ...)

    For those who used Pownce for file sharing, have a look at Dropbox: https://www.getdropbox.com/

    I use it and love it.
  • Justin
    Amazing... I received an email from Pownce on 30-Nov asking me to renew my pro account. Glad I didn't.
  • computercats
    Particularly bummed out will be users who paid for a pro account — Pownce says it will email them with more info soon, so let’s hope they get their money back.
    So, after all .. Got or not?
  • 2razr
    Nonsense .. This is not a great loss at all. Many others do the same. It was very unnecessary. I often saw the same post on my sites
  • edsion007
    Hmmm... why it has to do with twitter so much?
  • edhardy622
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    http://www.uggboots365.co.uk
  • I really appreciate your help, it is very useful for me,you will get good grades!
    You will be successful.
  • SilentJay74
    I really do not like this at all. Pownce for me was a way to send important files extremely fast. It was way easier then some other apps. Plus I really enjoyed Pownce. Sorry top see it go. So THIS JUST SUCKS!
  • FYI, you might actually be interested in Schmownce (http://schmownce.com)