Erin's dashboard

That was the only blog post we'd heard about all day, and it only really made mention of the coding problem that'd occurred. Thanks, though, for letting us know that it was part of the same issue. I appreciate your quick response, Ariel. :) – Erin W., on June 14, 2008 11:46

Ariel,

Thank you for your quick and thoughtful response. I do appreciate you taking out the time to say something further. I hope you realize that my frustration isn't aimed at you; I want nothing but the best for Pownce and want it to be so much better than it currently is.

I would hope that my fellow Powncers feel the need to say something. I feel their frustration, and I understand it completely. I've seen some ideas bounced around that I think are really smart, but I hope that they at least say something, rather than complain elsewhere and simply leave. True change can only happen if we stand up and say something. We're all a part of this community - I hope Powncers realize this.

As for mobile usage, I have a Sony Ericsson w300i. I'm about to upgrade in July (this phone is 2 years old), but I won't be able to afford anything like a Blackberry/iPhone until I graduate college in December and get a real job that doesn't involve minimum wage. Thank you for the suggestion, however.

The majority of the frustration comes from cookie-cutter responses that have been received. I do understand that you type responses out, and in many cases, it's warranted to post the same response. I also understand the need for brevity in some cases, but after awhile, it seems like no one is listening, especially when we see no real change on our end. I realize that sometimes solutions take time, but sometimes there needs to be a quick fix on your end (in this case, something with the API) to get results to us. Sometimes, we feel stability is much more important than hearing, "We're working on it." We can put up with missing parts if we can at least access it - to us, that signals progress - and lately, we haven't been able to access it all that much. I hope you can understand where we're coming from in that respect.

Most of us access Pownce for free. We don't deal with advertising, and we don't have to pay to use the service. Quite honestly, that's a feat in and of itself. But uptime and speed are also important to us. If it happens too often, as you can see, it can turn users off very, very quickly, especially when it's over a period of weeks - not days, weeks. I can only hope for a solution, and soon.

Again, I apologize if my response was harsher than intended. It's only out of love that I said anything at all - I wouldn't have been so verbose and put so much thought into it if I didn't care about what happens with the community. I don't want to see Pownce get pushed under the rug, and I really do want to defend it, as I have always tried to do. I want to feel as though I have something to defend. I will, once stability is restored.

You do have a loyal community. Please always remember that. We wouldn't be so upset if we didn't want to use it so much. If we didn't care, we'd just leave. Instead, we're here, asking you to please make it better.

I have it on good authority - and not just you - that the Pownce team really is doing something to make this work. For this, I am thankful. Again, thank you for the thought you put into your response. I really do feel now that I am being heard.

Thank you,
Erin – Erin W., on June 03, 2008 01:34

Agreed, artfuldodga. Cupcakes should be reserved for someone who knows how to put a fully functioning site together. So much for "community management." Your community is falling apart, Pownce. – Erin W., on June 02, 2008 22:55

I'm extremely disappointed. Little reaction aside from, "We know."

Pownce used to be my favorite social networking community. Period. I love what it could be. I absolutely love the premise behind it. Now it seems that those working on it seem to just put it on the back burner. Pownce is no longer a priority; their other sites are now a priority...or, in some cases, cupcakes matter a helluva lot more than development. Way to go.

What's sad is you don't seem to understand how passionate the Pownce community really is (quickly becoming WAS) about the project. The initial crowd, especially, are somewhat of a tightknit group, and we all wanted Pownce to be great. We saw the promise in it. Now, it seems that is no longer the case. We care more than you do. I realize that running a social networking site can't be easy, but we get nearly no help and no resolution.

I feel bad for Pro members. They're the ones that have donated their hardworking money toward supposedly making Pownce better. I was considering putting down the money, myself, for a Pro account. Right now, I'm glad I didn't. If this is how my money would have been used, I don't want to give you a dime.

We get more of a response, and much more quickly, from other services. Some of these other services are in their infancy, but the questions get answered. Server problems are resolved.

Tell me, what reason do I have to defend you anymore? Your downtime and slowness rivals Twitter at this point - sometimes, even overtaking them. Meanwhile, I'm considering dumping my Pownce account altogether and jumping ship to Plurk. They've been nothing but responsive - and not a cut and paste response. Personalization: it works wonders.

I love the Pownce community; I just really miss being able to actually communicate with them. It's strange that I'm pretty much being forced to leave a community that once welcomed me with open arms during the beta.

The mobile application works fine; however, I don't use something like an iPhone or whatnot to access it. I use it in my actual browser. My cell phone can handle your app. It's just kind of pointless when I've got a different phone than it was intended for. I can't click YouTube video links for Music Video Monday. I can't click to get to pictures for Foto Friday. Instead, I have to wait until I get to an actual computer to access it...and quite frankly, I should be able to access the FULL site with my computer. That's the whole point - access from anywhere. I'm not able to access the functionality I used to love from my home computer. You've failed on that front.

If you acknowledge problems, perhaps make sure they're actually fixed. It has been WEEKS of this same problem, over and over and over again. If you're going to continue to invest time and money in Pownce, I think you need to make it better for those of us who have dedicated our time (and in many cases, THEIR money) to using it and getting full functionality. I think we deserve, at the very least, that much.

Your community cares about you. Perhaps you should start doing the same.

Agreed. Pownce has slowed to a crawl, and for whatever reason, the app doesn't work on my computers, so I can't even use that. I have to use the mobile site via PC. It works, but it's counterintuitive when it comes to viewing images, videos, whatnot.

Marco,

I'm at work/school, so I'll check it when I get home. I'm not sure what you mean by preview images. I don't remember seeing anything of the sort, but I also don't remember a broken image icon, so I'll have to investigate when I get home.

In a few hours, I'll pass along the information that I can get. Thanks for trying to work on this with me. I appreciate the help.

Marco,

I am currently on Windows XP SP3. I haven't tried it on my Vista machine or any of my work machines, so I'm unable to tell you if it works on other systems, but I do know that my primary computer does not seem to like twhirl for whatever reason. I'm not sure what could cause the problem, as other programs running on the AIR runtime work well and connect just fine.

I was successfully able to change the color scheme. I'm not sure why it isn't connecting.

Let me know if there's anything else you need me to check.

Thanks,
Erin

The problem is, none of these make sense. Twitter, my ISP, router, whatever, are not down when I attempt to use them - I never have problems accessing the actual site; it's only the software. My firewall does not block access - I have checked and re-checked, and it's got full access. Internet Explorer, also, is not set to offline mode, so can you give me another explanation? Because I'm not finding my answer here.

Still having the problem....

Thomas: Windows XP SP3, latest version of Twhirl (0.8.1) - downloaded and installed today. – Erin W., on May 09, 2008 02:35

Leah,

I know I'm still having the problem. I've tried refreshing multiple times with the same result.

If you're curious about everyone's username, mine's femme_dork.

Hope that helps.

I can't load after 2-3 tries. 500 error, every time. Not that Admiral Ackbar isn't easy on the eyes (okay, that's a lie) but it's irritating.

For anyone still having an issue and wanting a Pownce fix, it doesn't have the embedding features of the main Pownce, but http://m.pownce.com/ still works for any browser. At least it lets me participate... :/

By the way, if you really want to access Pownce, try http://m.pownce.com/ - unfortunately, it doesn't have all the features, but it still works from a regular browser...so people can at least post from there. – Erin W., on April 14, 2008 11:53

Having the same issue here. Was able to access a few other notes a couple of minutes ago (around 7AM Eastern), and still receive messages from other users, but I can't get into the actual site.

Not sure if the Pownce app is working, as I'm currently at work myself, but I'm admittedly annoyed with the fact that I can't log in from my browser.

Definitely out of sorts for me. Kind of irritating.

The rest of this week, they've had internal errors, but today, I've been getting notifications at odd times, or none at all. Not sure if it's playing catch-up or if they tried to implement something and it went wrong, but it's definitely not working as usual.