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Muxtape and Pownce

March 25, 2008 at 10:18 pm · Filed under Internet

I had an interesting internet day today. First, I discovered Muxtape, a super simple but completely wonderful website. Everything about it is simple, obvious and easy. I set up http://ironkeith.muxtape.com/ just to see how it all worked. It’s unusual to find such a simple idea which hasn’t been done (so far as I know) on the internet yet. It’s somewhat inspiring to find something new and think “I can’t believe no one has done this yet.” Maybe it’s possible that all of the good ideas aren’t already taken. Sadly I fear that Muxtape’s days must be numbered. There’s no way they aren’t going to get sued into oblivion.

I also signed up for Pownce. It’s part and parcel with this whole new “micro-blogging” phenomenom (because blogging itself is not phenomenal enough). So far so good with Pownce. The interface is really obvious, and I understand what it’s supposed to do. This is the exact opposite of the way I felt when I first signed up for Twitter. Twitter baffled - and continues to baffle - the hell out of me. While I understand what people are doing on Twitter, I don’t feel any need to do it myself; it feels more like a chore than anything else. When comparing Pownce and Twitter I feel the need to draw a parallel to MySpace and Facebook. MySpace is ugly, counter-intuitive, bastardized and hugely popular for reasons I can’t really grasp. Facebook is tight, well executed, obvious (except for pokes… what the hell are pokes?) and slightly less popular (for not anyways). The same is true for Twitter vs. Pownce. Pownce is the better app, but Twitter is more popular - for now.

This post is branching in two directions now:

  1. Why I feel the need to engage in social networking even though I don’t really enjoy it? [updated March 27, 2008]
  2. Do aesthetics hold any weight over functionality for web applications?

Neither of which I feel like driving into at this point. I’ll write them later on.

Ps. There was a third cool app I found today the dealt with streaming video live from your cell phone, but I’ll be damned if I can remember the URL. [http://www.qik.com/]

Joel said,

March 25, 2008 @ 11:10 pm

I came across your blog post and thought I might be able to share why I think services like twitter and pownce are useful. I was confused when I first started using twitter too. I think the key to it is this: lots of small pieces of information can be combined into a bigger picture.

When I’m using twitter I see information from a ton of places by people who are usually pretty early when it comes to new cool things. I find out about web apps, bands, meetups, etc. I’m betting pownce works the same way. You just have to be following a lot of people. Once you get above 30 or so it will get interesting. It’s ok to follow strangers, too…you’ll get to know them.

That’s just been my experience, maybe it’ll help.

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