So I finally got a chance to check out Pownce, thanks to an invite from Pollie. Although I am still not so sure I get what all the hype is about, I have to admit that my first impression is...its pretty cool. The desktop application is written in Flex for Adobe's new AIR platform and allows you to communicate with groups of friends, individual friends or publicly by sending messages, posting links and events, replying to posted messages or uploading files (you can do this all from the website of course but its very cool to be able to do it from the desktop app). Publicly posted messages from you and your contacts are available via RSS and you can group your friends into contact groups in order to easily send information to only a select group of people.

While I think Pownce is so far a very interestingly different kind of lifestreaming platform, there were a couple of things I had to question. The first is that the desktop app is begging to feel more like a chat application, with more automatic feedback instead of reliance on the refresh button. Plus, when replying to messages or viewing files, you are still directed to the website, which in most cases is fine, but not so much when the image appears all by its lonesome...without even a background. Also, and perhaps this is because so many other applications have jumped on the band wagon, where is the mobile support?

Still, I am intrigued and have thus invited several friends...we'll see.