I’d like to see more people using Pownce, though that causes a problem like we have with IM: People you know use different services, which leaves you using both, trying to manage multiple accounts that essentially do the same thing. Maybe what we need is the equivalent of Jabber, an open standard that can be used to unify the services.

Anyway, confusion aside, it’s time to get to the fun part and compare the two services.

Twitter

• Can post via IM or SMS
• Let’s you edit your profile’s theme, while Pownce demands a “Pro” subscription to do more than pick a prefab design
• Offers the useful @ reply system.
• Has a lot more users

Pownce

• Better design overall
• Allows more than 140 characters
• Is easier to send private messages to other users
• Allows you to choose either Message, Link, File, or Event when posting
• Let’s you feature links to your websites, IM accounts, and profiles on Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube, etc.

Both services have some good points. Though I really like the fact that Pownce allows longer messages, has a better private message system, and is more of a communications tool than a sandwich-notification system, I’m sticking with Twitter, since that’s what everyone else is using. After all, there’s no point in using Pownce if you don’t know anyone who uses it.

I think of the two services as a sort of IM service that you needn’t be logged-in to receive messages. They’re, to me, public IM. Pownce is leading in that aspect (marketing themselves as an IM-like service rather than a system to tell everyone what you’re doing), but unfortunately, everyone uses Twitter, and therefore sees the notice on the main page that says “What are you doing?” I’d like to see less of that usage.

I recently created a Twitter account, and it’s interesting, though it threatens to be a major time waster (and why must their API have a 70 request per hour limit?). I haven’t actively used IM in years, and I don’t have a cellphone, but Twitter so far has pulled me in. I just use it as an IM service/link-sharing system/Tumbleblog (and I have WSC’s feed auto-posted ).

What is Twitter? It’s IM 2.0.