pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=49345c0b14b9b930000dec66maxX=150maxY=150" border="0" alt="leahculver.jpg" title="leahculver.jpg" width="150" height="150" /Blog software company Six Apart is buying Twitter clone a href="http://pownce.com/"Pownce/a and is shutting it down./p pCo-founder Leah Culver (pictured) and full-time employee Mike Malone will join Six Apart; Culver a href="http://blog.pownce.com/2008/12/01/goodbye-pownce-hello-six-apart/"says/a they'll "take [their] vision to all of Six Apart's products."/p pDoes that mean Six Apart will try to go after Twitter directly? Or -- more likely -- just add more messaging/"microblogging" features to its software like TypePad, Movable Type, and Vox -- as it goes up against WordPress, Tumblr, etc.?We don't know, but if you do, a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/contact"we'd love to hear from you/a./p pPownce launched in June, 2007. Credit some of its attention to iconic co-founder Kevin Rose -- best known for his other jobs, co-founder of Digg, co-host of Diggnation, and former Tech TV anchor./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/_RZFcJC2nBEyGCb7l3Dzfvf7wgI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/_RZFcJC2nBEyGCb7l3Dzfvf7wgI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=0aucZtee"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=0aucZtee" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=HTSOtmFW"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=fXfsFRha"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=c2mhZkuk"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=c2mhZkuk" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=jy1nCZYr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=orbYepei"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=eNMSCLpx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=kAHH7FS2"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/eyeKdE54J_I" height="1" width="1"/

div style="position:relative; float:left; padding-right: 1ex;" img src="http://www.accessoweb.com/photo/662072-804035.jpg" alt="Six Apart achete Pownce" title="Six Apart achete Pownce" / /div div nbsp;a class="link" href="http://pownce.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href,'_blank');return false;"Pownce/a , le site de micro-blogging, dont le co-fondateur n'est autre que Kevin Rose, le père de a class="link" href="http://digg.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href,'_blank');return false;"Digg.com/a , vient d'être vendu à a class="link" href="http://www.sixapart.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href,'_blank');return false;"Six Apart/a , célèbre pour ces plateformes de blogs. br / br /Comme noté sur a class="link" href="http://blog.pownce.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href,'_blank');return false;"le blog officiel de Pownce/a , l'activité de Pownce prendra fin le 15 décembre 2008 et les 2 créateurs sont intégrés aux équipes de Six Apart pour, je suppose, continuer le développement de leur bébé mais sous une autre forme. br / br /Six Apart tenterait il, avec ce rachat, de venir marcher sur les plates bandes de Twitter ? br / br /Affaire à suivre. br / br /via a class="link" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JiiYkcwaNk0/" onclick="window.open(this.href,'_blank');return false;"Techcrunch/a br _moz_editor_bogus_node="TRUE" / /div br style="clear:both;"/ div style="position: relative;"Article original écrit par Philippe LAGANE et publié sur a href="http://www.accessoweb.com"AccessOWeb/a br /br / /divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/accessoweb/XGSC?a=MF2q0shF"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/accessoweb/XGSC?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/accessoweb/XGSC?a=ZRdzSbdB"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/accessoweb/XGSC?d=43" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/accessoweb/XGSC?a=vFNw9cZo"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/accessoweb/XGSC?d=599" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/accessoweb/XGSC/~4/frCUPMQ4y74" height="1" width="1"/

Pownce, the microblogging service often compared to Twitter, has been acquired by Six Apart. According to the company blog, the service will be shutdown on December 15th, while the main Pownce team – Leah Culver and Mike Malone – will join Six Apart. Users will have the option to “import [their] posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress.”

The brainchild of Culver and Digg founder Kevin Rose, Pownce launched with much fanfare in 2007. But despite the early buzz and in many ways a superior feature-set, the service hasn’t been able to gain nearly the type of traction as the darling of short-form messaging – that of course being Twitter.

It doesn’t sound like Six Apart has aspirations to revamp Pownce and take on Twitter either. They echo the sentiment that this deal is more about acquiring talent from Pownce, writing, “we are very sorry the site will be closing ... We’re planning on doing great things with the help and expertise of the Pownce team, and can’t wait to see all the results of their hard work.”

Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka will also be joining Six Apart as advisers as part of the deal.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Pownce Invites Increased: Please Invite Others
Pownce Adds RSS, Support For More Video/Photo Sites
Pownce To Launch Public API
Pownce Releases Public API
Pownce Invites on eBay
Pownce Gets New Features
Put Pownce on Facebook

pBlog tech and advertising company a href="http://www.sixapart.com/" title="Six Apart"Six Apart/a has acquired micro-blogging platform a href="http://pownce.com/" title="Pownce "Pownce/a for an undisclosed sum, a href="http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/01/six-apart-acquires-and-shuts-down-pownce/" title="VentureBeat reports"VB reports/a. But don't expect Pownce, which lets users broadcast short messages (including videos, photos and mp3s) to be embedded into any of Six Apart's current blogging tools—at least not in its current form—as Six Apart is pulling the plug on the service as of Dec 15. Pownce's lead developers Leah Culver and Mike Malone will likely take on similar roles within Six Apart, and its technology will be pulled into Six Apart's overall infrastructure. /p p Pownce was founded in January 2008 by Culver and Digg vets Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka; and though the service was hyped as Twitter's top competitor, it ultimately failed to catch its rival in terms of user adoption. But clearly, the micro-blogging space remains hot: Facebook was a href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-this-phantasmagoric-life-acquisition-talks-between-facebook-and-twitter" title="eyeing a Twitter buyout"eyeing a Twitter buyout/a as recently as a month ago (for about $500 million worth of its stock, no less), Stocktwits, a Twitter-based stock tracking service a href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-stocktwits-gets-angel-funding-for-twitter-based-financial-message-board" title="got funding in late September"got funding in late September/a, and social video startup a href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-seesmic-acquires-twitter-client-twhirl" title="Seesmic acquired Twhirl"Seesmic acquired Twhirl/a, a micro-blogging and messaging aggregation service in April. /p pstrongRelated/strong/p ul class="related" lia href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-this-phantasmagoric-life-acquisition-talks-between-facebook-and-twitter/"This Phantasmagoric Life: Acquisition Talks Between Facebook And Twitter Break Down/a/li lia href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-seesmic-acquires-twitter-client-twhirl/"Seesmic Acquires Twitter Desktop Client Twhirl/a/li /ul p!-- iMark Logic Digital Publishing Summit, Thursday November 6, Westin Times Square. Insight and perspective from Outsell, Gilbane, Simon Schuster, BusinessWeek.com, more. Evening cocktail reception. Cost is complimentary. a href="http://content.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=000010cb0000000000000000/SITE=PC_US/AAMSZ=PREMB_NEWS/relocate=http://marklogicdps.eventbrite.com/"Register now!/a/i --/p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?a=HbfyIh"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?i=HbfyIh" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=7xJYO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=7xJYO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=U9LGO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=U9LGO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=g9Gzo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=g9Gzo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=5kgSO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=5kgSO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=sxzdO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=sxzdO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pcorg/~4/471691550" height="1" width="1"/

Pownce, the media-rich Twitter competitor that was co-founded by Digg’s Kevin Rose along with Leah Culver and Daniel Burka, has been acquired by Six Apart and will be closing its doors on December 15. Users will be able to export their accounts to other services, allowing them to retain their messages and media, but it looks like Pownce users will have to turn to Twitter for their micro-blogging needs (if they haven’t already). Culver and Mike Malone (Pownce’s two engineers) will be integrated into the Six Apart team.

The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise - Pownce has long struggled in the shadow of Twitter in the microblogging space, despite the fact that the Pownce crew objects to being called a Twitter competitor. There were some major differences: Pownce allowed users to share photos, music, videos, events and offered niceties like an official AIR application, but its core functionality was still very similar.

We first heard about the site back in summer 2007, when it made it headlines as Rose’s secret new startup. Excitement built up to the point that invites were being sold on eBay, but by the end of the year, it became clear that Pownce wasn’t catching on nearly as quickly as Twitter, and it seemed like it might be headed to the deadpool before it even launched to the public in January. Even Robert Scoble, who usually embraces social web services, hasn’t updated his account since July.

Co-founder Leah Culver has written a semi-sweet farewell to the Pownce community on the site’s blog.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Once considered a Twitter rival, the start-up co-founded by Diggs Kevin Rose will be closing down in two weeks.

Once considered a Twitter rival, the start-up co-founded by Diggs Kevin Rose will be closing down in two weeks.

Once considered a Twitter rival, the start-up co-founded by Diggs Kevin Rose will be closing down in two weeks.