We just launched the public release of Pownce (no more invites!) with some new features. My favorite feature is the mobile event view but all the other Pownce team members seem to like the Friend Importer stuff. Basically, you can try to find your friends on Pownce via your email contacts or other social networks including Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Digg, Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook.
Oh yeah, if anyone from Facebook is reading this, please don’t ban my account. I’m trying to obey the very lengthy TOS.
Anyways, remember how a few months ago Pownce added the ability to link to other social networks from your profile? It looks something like this:
I called it “profile bling”, mostly because that was all it was good for. It looks cute and helps your friends know what other online networks you’re active on.
WELL.
With the Friend Importer feature, the *bling* is actually helpful in matching your friends on other social networks to potential friends on Pownce.
It’s nothing fancy; the process is something like:
• ping the Facebook/Digg/Flickr/Twitter API for the user’s friend list
• match results to Pownce users based on username, full name, email, and/or *bling*
• return potential Pownce friend and let the user decide who to add as a friend
I’d like to say that I had secret plans all along to use that *bling*. Actually, I kind of hoped someone else would use the *bling* for their secret plans… I’m looking at you, DataPortability.org.
24 Comments
Guillermo
I have to say, the first thing I thought when I saw the Facebook feature was the Scoble ban. Let’s hope you don’t get in trouble for that.
EvilWalksWithMe
This seems like a really neat and useful feature. I’ll try giving it a go later on. Thanks for all your hard work on Pownce, it really is a useful app/site that I can’t imagine being without now. Congrats
Geoff
As usual, you rock. Nice work, Leah.
drew olanoff
nice work, keep it rollin’!
Ross Hill
The mobile interface is nice, but the friend bling is more practical - at least for an iPhoneless Aussie.
ilan
i like the fact that you let the user decide whether to add the potential friend.
other services scrap through your friends list wherever and automatically adds them as friends.
cheers and good luck with the coming swarm
Ryan Kennedy
I see the Y! Mail integration uses the Mail web service. I can’t believe it, you built a Mail app without me! I see how it is. Leah’s all grown up. Doesn’t need my help anymore.
Seriously, though…awesome stuff. Congrats on the public launch!
Koka Sexton
lol…Profile Bling. Thanks for putting in all the work on Pownce.
Sam Alexander
Very nice. Finally, someone does it the right way — without teaching users to give their passwords away.
Grats on the Pownce launch! Have you officially become the Django spokesperson yet?
Seems like Pownce is to Django what Basecamp (and all the other 37signals apps) is to Rails.
philippp
Congrats on the release! One quick question — why does nobody allow import of gmail contacts via a gmail-exported CSV? It seems like the easiest way to get around the l/p issue, yet I’ve not seen a single site implement this.
Whatup with that?
cheerio!
Adam
Leah,
Congrats (for the thousandth time) on the public launch of Pownce!
The new friends importer is kinda neat. I played with it a bit today.
-Adam
Ken Keiter
I like your process for accomplishing this: dead simple and too the point. I read your name the other day — something having to do with a RAID array? Haha just teasin’! Anyway, I’m moving to San Francisco in about two months. As someone who’s completed that move, do you have any tips for me? I’m kind of nervous about moving to “the big city” seeing as I’m from little ol’ Portland. Thanks Leah! I’m so happy that Pownce is working out — you should be proud! BTW, I finally heard about that Uncov guy and read some of his stuff - he’s SUCH a f***in loser.
Have a rockin day!
Isaac
What is the bling here?
Am I missing something? Bling means… friends… the social graph has been renamed bling? Part of me wants to see Scoble and Dave calling it bling. Just because, then that would prove, yes, this is all totally pointless and arbitrary.
Hey at least you’re doing what you love. I guess.
admin
Ryan - actually, I found this message to be really helpful: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ydn-mail/message/312
So, I guess I did need your help a bit
David, biologeek
Congrats for the public release!
Any chance to see the friend importer as a google code like django psn?
Adam B
Congrats on the launch.
I’ve had a quick play (only joined when it went public) with it and it’s looking very nice. There’s still room to polish XHTML and JS, but an impressive launch.
I decided to do a bit of research on who the developers were, hence how I found your blog.
A beautiful women who knows how to code?! I think I’m in Love, Leah.
Ryan
Pownce looks really, really great. Congratulations on getting everything up and running. I’ve pretty much spent my last two days messing around with the app.
solacetech
Wow! In a small amount of time Pownce has become a heavyweight in the IM division,cool…
Chris Saad
Leah - are you going to help out with DataPortability?
Look forward to seeing you again at FOO Camp.
Cheers,
Chris
Ash Laws
Woo! The ‘bling’ finally has an effect. I can’t wait for more of this cross-social networking to take effect.
Julian
How did you do that with importing friends in Python? I googled around, seemed not easy when I tried.
Kelly
Hey. Signed up today and started playing. You should allow the adding of customer ‘bling’ as most of them are just URLs.
e.g., I wants to add my Traineo profile on there, but had to add it as a website, instead of a social network, when in reality there is no difference between the data needed. (Obviously there is work for you to get friends importers etc…)
Robert Synnott
By the way, your ICS download links (for events) do not work.
Andrew Mager
Leah, I love the new release of Pownce. I am definitely using it more. I am still finding myself inviting people too