Fresh AIR Apps

Pownce is the social startup by Digg’s Kevin Rose and Leah Cluver who is also the lead developer. It has been labelled as many things and even compared to Twitter, but essentially it is a social way of sending messages, files and events to your friends. It can be thought of a hybrid form of IM meets Twitter. Difference here is that they are pushing the pro option for 20 USD a year. This gives you advert free, large file upload sizes and custom themes. The AIR app does not currently allow custom themes though.

The desktop application for using and sending items to Pownce has been around for a while now since the AIR alpha. I will say at this point that I am a new user to Pownce and I don’t directly know anyone who uses it on a regular basis. The application looks well polished and seems fast and responsive with nice form layouts for adding events etc.

What I did find a bit odd is that if someone sends me an MP3 I can’t play that directly within the Pownce AIR application. I can however view the replies to each entry within the UI. The app is very direct in it’s approach and does nothing really fancy but the basics for the Pownce service.

Design eye

Great looking application, nice UI and colours that match the Pownce brand well. Textual content is clear and viewable. The slightly rounded corners to the interface give it a coolness factor without being all web 2.0.

Technical eye

It’s built using Adobe Flex and developed in conjunction with the Shawn Allen and the guys at Stamen Design.