Pownced, part II

Posted on | December 7, 2008 | No Comments

There is a bit more to say about the Pownce closure. Reading the full story here, the acquisition of Values of n means it’s also the end for I Want Sandy, a productivity app I have previously mentioned with some derision. For me, the retro gender typing of this latter platform typified the mindset of web entrepreneurialism and the GTD philosophy in particular. Thankfully others are starting to write more extensively about this: Adrian Mackenzie’s “The Affect of Efficiency: Personal Productivity Equipment Encounters the Multiple” in the latest ephemera is an extremely welcome intervention.

We need to watch this space to understand what’s likely to happen between the big contenders, Facebook and Twitter. Secrecy around pricing only adds weight to suspicions that the actual value of these apps is grossly speculative. Few if any are willing to demonstrate the details of turnovers let alone takeovers, and the statements of CEOs regularly deploy an immaterial language to efface financial considerations: Dornfest “fell in love with the team”; Zuckerberg just wants everyone to be connected.

This latest development confirms that the successful business model apparently so elusive for social media is simply to buy the innovations and the talent after small start ups have worn the risk and engineered the product. As such, it’s another demonstration of how old this new media economy is.

Category: Web studies

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