The Pownce Blog

Tonight we launched the new feature of sharing files to the public. You can now share your personal files with your friends, fans, and the Pownce community at large.

We also provided more control over who can download audio files that you share with the public. You can access these new settings by going to your settings when logged in to your account.

In addition, we’re happy to announce that we’ve increased the base file size limit for all Powncers from 10MB to 100MB! We greatly appreciate the support we’ve received from our Pro members, so we’re also increasing the file size limit to 250MB for free for all the Pros. We’re really excited about these new features and hope you are too!

Hello Django fans!

If you like to hack in Python and Django, be sure to check out the Django Dash competition. Build the best web app you can (using Django of course) in only 48 hours. The competition runs from Saturday, May 31 to Sunday, June 1 and registration begins today!

Want more Pownce? In addition to the Pownce website, we have an official desktop application and a site for your mobile phone. There are also a bunch of fan-created applications that rock our socks off. Check them out at http://pownce.com/tools/

Here are some of my personal favorites:

PownceAIM

An AIM bot that pings you with your Pownce messages and allows for you to quickly post to Pownce via your instant messaging client. Just send an IM to “pownceaim” (on AIM) to get started.

PownceMonkey

PownceMonkey is a desktop application that displays all your latest Pownce messages and allows you to post to Pownce. You can also sort by note type, play audio files, view thumbnail images, and match your Pownce theme.

PownceMeme

Want to know what other Powncers are doing? Want to see the most popular stuff on Pownce? Check out PownceMeme for the latest hot stuff from the Pownce community.

rePownce

rePownce is a well-designed Facebook application that adds your Pownce notes to your Facebook feed. Let all your friends on Facebook know what you’re sending on Pownce!

Blog It!

Another Facebook application, created by the blog company SixApart, Blog It! lets you send blog posts and status updates to several social networks at once. You can write a quick update and send it to Facebook, Pownce, and Twitter.

Speaking of posting to multiple sites, there are also several websites that let you view and post to many social networks at once, including Pownce. Check out SocialThing!, Mahalo Follow, HelloTxt, Ping.fm, TwitKu, Twhirl, and FriendFeed. If you have a personal website, you can also also show your support for Pownce by adding a Pownce badge or Pownce It! button. Hope you have fun sharing stuff on Pownce!

There have been a few weird bugs today on the site and few inconsistencies in general the last few days. Rest assured, our wee team is looking into it and we’ll get everything back on an even keel as soon as we can. Just wanted to let you all know that we’re on the chase. Thanks for the helpful bug reports people have sent in. We love you guys. Cheers.

The four may not seem to go so well together at first glance, but they all blended beautifully at our last Pownce Brunch Meetup in Los Angeles. We joined forces with the awesome folks at Blogging.la and The Groop for the gathering at the Farmer’s Market. Check out photos from the meetup here.

Leah and I are back in San Francisco now and are definitely missing the hot and sunny streets of LA already!

Also, if you hadn’t seen photos from our brunch meetup at SXSW, view them here. We had such a great turn out of truly great people! (We’re also happy that the restaurant didn’t hate us for having over 60 people show up when we only made a reservation for 20!).

To keep updated on future Pownce Brunch Meetups or to organize your own, visit our community wiki.

Hello from Austin!
Most of the Pownce crew is gearing up for SXSW 2008. We’ve got a lot going on for the event, both online and offline:

Pownce on panels
Leah Culver - What Women Need to Succeed & Building Developer-Friendly Web Service APIs
Daniel Burka - Social Design Strategies
Kevin Rose - Considerations for Scalable Web Ventures
Ariel Waldman - How to Rawk SXSW: Achieving Geekgasm

16bit Pownce Party
Saturday, March 8 - 10pm-2am
RSVP here

Pownce Brunch Meetup in Austin
Sunday, March 9 @ 12pm
Moonshine Grill - 303 Red River Street

SXSW on Pownce
Add http://pownce.com/sxsw as a friend to receive messages, links, music, events and more from SXSW2008! Send a private message to suggest your own live-blogging, photos, etc. for the account to share with everyone.

Track all SXSW messages, links, files and events on Pownce
See who is saying what about SXSW at http://sxsw.pownce.com

We wanted an easy way to see all the public notes about SXSW on Pownce, so we reached out to our awesome PownceAPI community to create a solution. We received some great projects over the last few days - check them out:

http://www.slenderbox.com/sxsw.php by Augie
http://powncespy.com/sxsw/ by Jeff Hodson
http://www.dinnermint.org/sxsw/ by Jon Rohan
http://www.lesquat.net/pownce/puaw/ by Rémi
http://www.heychinaski.com/pownce-sxsw by Tom Martin

While it was a tough decision, we had to choose one to promote at SXSW. We chose Heychinaski.com/pownce-sxsw because we really enjoyed the ease of use, as well as the ability to view it from our mobile devices. Congrats, Tom!

View the official Pownce + SXSW site created by Tom at: http://sxsw.pownce.com

Thanks to everyone who came out for our first Pownce Brunch in Miami! It was great getting to know all of you in person.

Here’s the Powncers being all Powncey:

Photos by Joseph Smarr.

Upcoming Pownce Brunches include Austin, Los Angeles, and Amsterdam. Feel free to organize your own Pownce meetup as well. There’s already one in Milwaukee! Mmm… brunch.

Hey developers! We’re proud to announce that Pownce now has a complete API for you to create awesome projects, mashups, and hacks.

What’s new in v2.0?

The biggest improvement is the ability to post notes. You can post messages, links, files, events and even replies via the API. Another big improvement is the ability to fetch lists of private and friends-only notes. Both these new features require a user to be logged in to Pownce and the API provides 2 ways to do this: HTTP basic authentication and OAuth, a new open standard for token-based web authentication.

In addition to new API features, we’ve also added an application directory for developers to show off their work and for users to find new tools for using Pownce. Check it out: http://pownce.com/tools/

We’re sorry it took so long for us to release a complete API. We’ve taken great care to provide the best experience for developers and we hope the wait was worth it. Going forward, we’ll be working hard to keep Pownce the best social messaging application out there.

Thanks to our developer community and our helpful API alpha testers. Keep the feature requests and feedback coming. You all rock.

Documentation for Pownce API v2.0 can be found here: http://pownce.pbwiki.com/API+Documentation2-0

Happy hacking.

Bring your laptops, iPhones, Blackberries and appetites and join the Pownce team for brunch!

Where to find us in March:

FOWA Brunch - Miami, FL
Noon on Saturday, March 1
@ GreenStreet Cafe

SXSW Brunch - Austin, TX
Noon on Monday, March 10
@ Moonshine Grill

Brunch + Beer with Pownce, Blogging.la & The Groop - Los Angeles, CA
Noon on Saturday, March 22
@ Farmer’s Market (we’ll aim for table space between Lottera and Starbucks)

For more up-to-the-date details and future Pownce Brunch Meetups, check the Pownce community wiki.

(photo: Tantek Çelik)