Pownce is a curious amalgam of Twitter and Pando. You can post comments, files, links, and events allowing one of your contacts, all of your contacts, or the whole Pownce world to view. Users can comment directly to specific posts. Unlike Twitter, you can have posts that are unlimited in size.

You can post using the Website interface. Pownce also provides a desktop tool that allows for posting. However, that is your only desktop option because Pownce has no public API. So unlike Twitter (which has a plethora of 3rd party applications) you get only what Pownce offers.

Pownce has a free version, which allows you to transfer up to 10 Meg per file with a cap at 100 Meg. The paid version--$20/year--allows you to transfer 100 Meg files.

I like Pownce, though I don't care for closed systems, but I will be hard pressed to use the service as heavily as Twitter and Pando. It has great features (like the private and group IMs) but it probably isn't enough for me to convince all my friends and family to switch.

Pownce is by invite only. Just so happens that I have 10 of them. If you want one, let me know at matthew [at] dogstar [dot] org and I'd be happy to share.

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