How many blogging platforms are there?

Sunday, March 02, 2008 by Dave Winer.

My post yesterday about my excitement over innovation in the Pownce API, led to what, in retrospect, was a predictable backlash from users who don't want: 

1. Twitter to get more complicated. 

2. To switch to a service with less users. 

3. To switch to another service. 

And who do want: 

1. Twitter to get more reliable. 

I feel largely the same way, even so, I'm still going to: 

1. Fill out the connective glue between my development environment and Pownce. 

2. Revise my Flickr and podcasting tools to post to Pownce in addition to Twitter.  

3. Possibly develop new services that can only work with Pownce because of their (new) API advantage over Twitter. 

Now, what does this mean for the market? Hard to know for sure, but here's what it could mean: 

1. Twitter might be inspired to match the features in the Pownce API, thus blunting the new edge Pownce has.  

2. Pownce could become more popular and may prove to have the same or worse scaling problems than Twitter. 

3. Pownce could retain its edge, allowing different kinds of apps to be built that run on their network, and both continue to grow and deal with scaling in their own ways. 

4. Something else. 

I'm pretty sure what won't happen is: 

1. Pownce kills Twitter. 

In blogging there are many platforms and related technologies. They all work differently and appeal to different groups of people. I suspect that's what's going to happen here.