The answer was just Twittered by Eric Meyer (http://twitter.com/meyerweb http://twitter.com/meyerweb): Of course Pownce is shutting down: it's been months now

The answer was just Twittered by Eric Meyer (http://twitter.com/meyerweb http://twitter.com/meyerweb): Of course Pownce is shutting down: it's been months now since anyone needed a place to complain about Twitter outages. My own analysis, now five months old, is a lot wordier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211870 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211870 Twitter holds a huge marketing advantage -- you can't say "Site X is just like Twitter" without saying "Twitter" -- and a big Metcalfe's Law advantage: Everyone who is remotely interested in Twitter-like sites already has a Twitter account, and those accounts won't magically disappear. Meanwhile, there will be more than one Twitter competitor, all desperately trying to distinguish themselves from each other as well as from the original.