If Pownce Is Headed For The Deadpool, Then Is Mint Headed There Too?

Yesterday Uncov went after Pownce, claiming that they are a fail and that "even Michael Arrington" can’t help them now after checking out an Alexa chart. In July I wrote that you "should never bring Alexa to a fight". It was true five years ago, it was true in July and it’s true today. Using charts (of any kind) in this Web 2.0 world is silly. Pownce/Twitter both have APIs – even using the tool offsite wouldn’t register on Alexa. This is why I’ve called for new metrics for years now.

Mike picked up the Uncov-bait, and wondered in the story title whether Pownce is headed for the Techcrunch deadpool.

I don’t know founder Leah Culver but I was wondering after reading both posts what some other startups might look like using Alexa. Uncov suggests that "you can look at virtually any Web 2.0 company and see a nearly-identical traffic graph". I would generally agree with that statement. Certainly Pownce has been overshadowed by Twitter based on API and those infected with Twitterdiction. I would suggest that Pownce is more on the lines of Tumblr than Twitter – in fact a marriage between Tumblr and Pownce might be sweet and long-lasting.

I selected Mint as my comparison site for this demo. It’s been written about a variety of times on Techcrunch, Mint won the Techcrunch award and they are now an advertiser on Techcrunch. Mint also has 5.45M funding, Pownce appears to have no funding. Using Uncov’s theory, I believe it’s a good comparison.

Here’s the Alexa comparison chart for both Mint and Pownce. I’ve animated it (5 sec) to show six months and seven days respectively. It’s easy to see that Pownce is ranked higher and slowly trending higher than Mint. So if based on an Alexa chart, Pownce is a fail, is Mint a fail as well?