Pownce, Twitter, Blogs…So many places to update, so little time, does it matter?

Scoble makes an interesting point about the proliferation of presence apps:

I?ve been watching my friends and they have just been copying and pasting their messages between their various accounts. I don?t like that trend, cause it just means more noise. I must admit I?ve done it a few times when I wanted everyone to know about something.

At some point I?d like to go through my membership on all the above and see how many people are members of all of these (and add in Facebook for good measure). Based on a very cursory look there?s a LOT of overlap. Source: Post to Pownce, Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr at same time ? Scobleizer

Okay, I’ve done this a couple times, but I think the real key here is to understand the inherent value of each tool.  Blogging…something longer, richer, with more thought and feeling.  Twitter, short and to the point.  Pownce…somewhere in the middle.  I like to use Pownce to announce things to the larger world quickly.  Twitter is, pretty much insular.  Sure I’ll do something like Twitter and Pownce when Jim and I are going doing a Mediasphere Radio show (Tuesday at noon PDT, btw, is the next one and we have the CEO of BlogTalkRadio on!), but I send out an event notice on Pownce followed by a link, on Twitter … it’s just a tweet isn’t it?

What we’re seeing is the explosion of ways to connect and contact each other, but haven’t quite gotten to the point of understanding which ones we like best for which purpose.

I think there will be some consolidation of these apps soon.  Maybe Facebook will buy Twitter and 8apps buy Pownce.  Then Microsoft will buy one and Google the other.  Yahoo, will, sadly, miss the boat.