Pownce APIs Coming
Over on the Pownce blog, Shawn announced that they are going to be forming a group to take a look at what APIs should be exposed for Pownce. That was one thing developers really wanted from the service, so I’m excited that they’re going in that direction. Duncan Riley over at TechCrunch had this to say: “Desktop interaction is Pownce’s Achilles heal; the Pownce Desktop AIR client has been defective from day one.” But I disagree. Our team has been really open with the Pownce team about what this version of AIR can and can’t do and we’ve been working with them when they have questions. It’s been great for all of us I think because they’ve been able to give us feedback on bugs, features and the development mode and we’ve been able to answer their development questions.
Even though the Pownce desktop doesn’t necessarily do everything, I think that’s partly by design and partly just the fact that it’s being built on a beta runtime. Both the Pownce desktop and Adobe AIR are going to expand and mature over the next few months, so don’t take what Pownce is doing now as the final version. I think Pownce APIs are going to help grow the entire Pownce ecosystem, but I have a lot of faith in the future of the current desktop version.
[tags]Pownce, Adobe AIR, APIs[/tags]
Posted in Adobe, Rich Internet Applications
July 25th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Happy to hear that there’s finally a public API even if i’m using more Twitter than Pownce for the moment. Pownce seems very promising.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:10 am
Hey Ryan,
The desktop app reads “alpha” right on the top. I think that should be fairly self-explanatory to folks.
Alpha software will have bugs and a limited feature set. That’s how it goes.
I gotta say, I’d rather use the Pownce desktop app. bugs and all rather than going to the web everytime someone posts something.
Some people just don’t get it.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:16 am
Like Brandon I’d rather use Pownce but my motives are not so unknown. I like it simply because it’s AIR based (I’m biased…guilty as self charged). I will say some of things it doesn’t do have little to do with the fact it’s alpha or based on a beta AIR (manual refresh?….ouch).
Pownce gets a lot of press so I guess we take the good with the bad. I know there a lot of people who wouldn’t know what AIR is if it weren’t for the blog and press activity Pownce gets. Seeing as Facebook is basing Muse on AIR it will be interesting to see how they impact the social network game and to see what they can do with AIR as well and overall it’s all good for the platform itself.
July 27th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
I agree an alpha product is an alpha product running on a beta runtime. Is it possible that the confusion is because people’s expectations are getting managed badly or is it because the limitations are based on what AIR can do? More and more people think if you hand them software and tell them that it is unfinished, they don’t take that under advisement anymore because so many folks don’t really hand out early stuff anymore, they hand out late almost finished work and call it early??
It seems unfair I hope the community understands situation it’s in and evaluates fairly.
July 27th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
I agree an alpha product is an alpha product running on a beta runtime. Is it possible that the confusion is because people’s expectations are getting managed badly or is it because the limitations are based on what AIR can do? More and more people think if you hand them software and tell them that it is unfinished, they don’t take that under advisement anymore because so many folks don’t really hand out early stuff anymore, they hand out late almost finished work and call it early??
It seems unfair I hope the community understands situation it’s in and evaluates fairly.