The Death of Pownce

So, yesterday (12/15/08), Pownce shut down. Pownce was a micro-blogging site, like Twitter. But, Pownce was a much better service.
First off, there was no 140 character limit to your posts. Your posts could be as lengthy as they needed to be. The idea was not to make a long blog post, but you could if you liked.
Second, the site was more built around sharing things with your followers and friends. You could upload an mp3 that you wanted everyone to hear, or upload a picture, or a video. Actually, you could upload any file up to 100mb with the free service (250mb for the $20/month service). And when you shared a YouTube link (or various other video sites), the video would automatically embed into your message.
It was a huge upgrade to the Twitter service created by Kevin Rose, Leah Culver, and Daniel Burka (all part of either the Digg or Revision3 crew). With the economy being what it was, Pownce wasn't able to remain open and free. Now, the technology is part of the SixApart system - which handles famous blogging tools like Vox and TypePad.
I was using the site from the beginning and had a Pownce way before I had a Twitter. It was a brilliant service that never got the word out too well and Twitter already had the crowd with them. Pownce was to Twitter what Facebook is to MySpace: a more technologically advanced and more Web 2.0 service that does what it predecessor/rival does, but does it much better and with more flair.
I will miss Pownce and I hope that someone else comes along and takes Twitter's userbase with them to a much better place of more usability and a much more stable environment. I like using Twitter, but I feel that I liked Pownce much more. But, again, Twitter just has all the users.