Guillermo Esteves's dashboard

Didn't work in my Safari. – plindberg, on August 26, 2008 06:40

that would be awesome!! – Ammadz Faiz, on July 18, 2008 04:47

I like this idea, and would like to see it implemented. Good job!

solved.

Pownce bookmarklet: http://gesteves.com/post/36097734/pow...

Of the Many Many times I've tried to get to Pownce over the past 24 hours I've been successful 3 times! Thats just plain ridiculous...I grew to really enjoy Pownce, I met a ton of awesome friends there and loved being able to share so much. I would never usually "donate" or pay for a service like this as there are so many free (working) alternatives out there but I paid for a Pro account not cause I wanted to use my own theme or share larger files because I wanted to contribute to the community that I had become a part of. But I am now beginning to regret that decision, where is all the money from the pro users going....if your 2 developers are working full time to get the site working maybe its time you use some of that money and get some people that can resolve the problems that have been plaguing the site for way too long. I think we've all been living with these problems for such a long time because we can imagine how difficult it must be to keep a site running with such a large user base and demand but enough is enough its been way too long and now when we can barely ever make it to the site anymore I would think you would be more proactive to get issues resolved.
BTW I have a Samsung Blackjack and the mobile app is spotty at best for me sometimes it won't except posts or replys it just tells me I must enter a reply when I just typed one out.

I've posted on Pownce. This has to be fixed now. Not next week, not even tomorrow. This needs to be fixed now. Pownce is nothing without community and it's not doing enough. Let me be clear. Enough is not being done. This needs to be fixed now.

Now. Dead. Serious.

Hi Erin,

I'm very sorry to hear you're angry!

We are not putting the site on the back burner by any means. Leah and Mike (our developers) are working full-time on optimizing the site.

The blank pages you experience are caused by people calling our API too much, and the honest answer is that constant monitoring of this and banning the abusing IPs is what will fix the issue, so it's an ongoing status of "working on it".

Cupcakes are definitely tasty but do not get in way of development whatsoever. I, myself, am not a developer, but it is my responsibility to communicate issues brought up by the community to the appropriate people within Pownce.

We at Pownce definitely understand how passionate the community is and use the site everyday. We're throwing a 1 Year Anniversary Party this month to celebrate the great community that has grown over the past year, we continue to send out Pownce "schwag" for those who send us SASEs, we try to schedule Pownce Brunch Meetups across the world whenever we travel (and we invite others to start their own as well!), etc. Additionally, we have a great community of API developers in our Google group that are creating new and exciting apps all the time for Pownce. Above all, I try to visit the public timeline at http://pownce.com/pubic_notes often to see how our community is passionate about using Pownce.

As for responses, I read every single response posted on Get Satisfaction and answer each email we receive at info@pownce.com. I never cut and paste responses (each one is typed individually by me), however, a lot of my responses will be repeated as appropriate. My response to each issue is essentially a confirmation that the problem has been logged and communicated to the greater Pownce team as needed.

Regarding mobile, what kind of phone do you use? I don't have an iPhone either, however, I use Pownce via my Blackberry. Functionality will definitely change depending on your phone's capabilities. Depending on the robustness of your phone, you can try accessing the regular non-optimized-for-mobile Pownce site to look at photos more quickly (I definitely understand that this is not ideal, though).

I really appreciate you taking the time to type out your frustrations and I am always available to chat further either in Get Satisfaction or at info@pownce.com. I don't want you (or anyone else) to feel like we're not here or not caring, so I really do welcome you to email me whenever you like if you want to discuss things/issues/thoughts/feelings/etc, related to Pownce more.

We really care about and love our community, so we are constantly listening and conversing. If more elaborate responses like these would help more when people report problems, please let me know. I typically have given short responses to just get to the root of the answer, so people can quickly know what's going on, but I understand if that's viewed as less-than-satisfactory.

Again, very sorry about all of this and thanks for taking the time to talk to us at length,

Ariel

Please be assured that both Leah and Mike (our Pownce developers) are working on the site issues full-time. I communicate every issue discussed in Get Satisfaction or our inbox with the appropriate people on our Pownce team. – Ariel Waldman, on June 02, 2008 23:20

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

Well said Erin! As of 6:24PM 6/2/08 we still haven't heard anything from the Pownce developers. So sad! – herbg, on June 02, 2008 22:25

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.

I absolutely agree with the above posts - I love Pownce and have spent a lot of time directing friends to it, as well as defending it against bigger, quicker social networking/micro blogging/whatever clients.

Unfortunately, I am beginning to feel like this is something I may not be able to endorse anymore, as there seem to be more shortcomings lately than advantages.

The Pownce community is one of the best I've found online, and it would be really sad to have to stop participating.

I've seen my social network on Pownce slow to a crawl. There's very few people posting now.

Quite silently, the conversation has all but stopped, which is a crying shame, it really is...

I LOVE Pownce but if it doesn't get fixed soon i'm going to abandon it and that would be a very sad day for me.

Not so much down, more like useless... I can't do anything with a blank screen, mobile functions fine but you know not everyone walks around glued to a cellphone. :P

So the sites been for the most part useless for the better part of a few weeks, please quit the cupcake parties and shindigs, save the fun for when you have a functioning site and community again, seriously...

I don't know how much work is done on pownce behind the scenes but its users haven't seen any real progress for months, we've seen the opposite – artfuldodga, on June 02, 2008 18:53