Pownce Now on Facebook, Battling Twitter

Thanks to the hard work of Jake Jarvis (apparently a Pownce fan and Facebook user), Pownce is now offering its limited, invitation-only user base a third method of accessing all of their notes… on Facebook. Users already had the option of using the website or a small software application (for Windows and Mac users), and now they have the option of the Facebook Pownce application.

According to Mashable, this new app delivers updates (which appear in small rectangles) from powncers right on the Facebook user's profile page, along with the updates of friends also on the service. Mr Jarvis developed this application in no time, considering the very recent launch of this new web 2.0 service. Given the overwhelmingly popular reception of the freshly unveiled Facebook platform (on which the Pownce application is built), the team behind the scenes at Pownce may just have a hit on their hands.

Not even Kevin Rose himself could have seen an app making use of his new startup so fast, which debuted as an Alpha (not quite beta stage yet) less than a week ago. If you have not heard of Pownce yet, get caught up with Paul Glazowski's first look at Pownce's alpha release.

Twitter, the microblogging rival that preceded Pownce, now has some serious competition in this new service. At first glance, many find the user interface of Pownce to be much more visually attractive with a cleaner look. Personally, I agree, but everyone's opinion on that will be different, so I will let you be your own judge. Twitter does however provide an advantage for anyone who wants more customization options as Pownce currently only allows selection between four themes while Twitter offers greater attention to the details with hexadecimal color code options for almost every element present on profiles. This is a great feature for designers who know how to use it, and probably not so great for anyone who doesn't understand HTML.

As far as functionality, Twitter seems very limited (only allowing you to send text messages) compared to Pownce's ability to send text messages as well as files, links and events. Will the ad-free, $20 a year Pro version of Pownce be worth it for the larger file upload size though? It is too early to tell, but Pownce may just be the Twitter-killer that so many people are already expecting it to be.