For those of you who don’t have the foggiest idea what I’m talking about, allow me to enlighten you. Pownce is sort of like twitter + ftp + instant messaging, all rolled up into one neat little app. Of course, I’m just assuming it’s rolled up into one neat little app, since I haven’t actually tried it yet for myself.

FYI, Pownce is a new “Kevin Rose” startup — the same guy responsible for digg and revision3, as well as various podcasts and T.V. shows. He has yet to disappoint me, hence the reason why I’d love to try out his new service. I’ll keep checking my inbox.

They’re even throwing a party tonight to commemorate this exciting event. I’ll be there in spirit only.

So what’s the big deal about IPTV? Well, similar to how downloadable movies will be the eventual death of video stores (and perhaps even the dvd), IPTV could put the final nail in the coffin of broadcast television. A little extreme you say? I think not! True, broadcast television will always be around, but it will be more comparable to what A.M. radio is today. This summer, broadcast television reached it’s all time lowest viewership in recorded history. This is because more and more people are finding their entertainment on the internet. Whether it be from video sites like YouTube or podcasting networks like TWiT.tv or in persistent online gaming worlds such as World of Warcraft. The latter boasts an impressive 6 million subscribers ranging from middle school kids to business executives.

IPTV isn’t quite ready for the mainstream yet. There is still one missing piece of the puzzle. For the masses to except this new technology, there will have to be an easy way to get the videos from your computer to your TV. This is where Apple comes in. In 2007, they are set to launch a little piece of hardware called the iTV. It’s a wireless box that sits on top of your television and streams video from your computer to your TV with the push of a button.

Like digg.com, Rev3′s current line-up is targeted at the geekculture elite and the techno savvy. They do hope to expand their reach to other target audiences in the future with new vidcasts. Until then, I’m more than happy watching shows like diggnation, systm, and geekdrome. You can subscribe to all of their vidcasts using iTunes or download them directly to your computer from their site at revision3.com.

In case you’ve never seen an episode of diggnation, here is a little clip of their most popular show on the Rev3 network. The show is a weekly vidcast highlighting the top stories on digg.com for that given week.

Then there’s Netscape.com. You might notice some similarities between this site and Digg’s. That’s because Netscape is a complete clone of Digg, through and through. That’s fine, shitty, but fine. I’ve seen this done plenty of times before. What I’m confused about, however, is what Netscape’s head honcho, Jason Calacanis, is proposing to do next. He is offering to pay the top posters of Newsvine, Digg, Reddit, and Flickr if they post a minimum of 150 stories per month to Netscape. They would receive $12,000 a year and be dubbed Netscape Navigators. Clever, huh? But that’s not what I’m confused about either. Business is business after all.

What baffles me is this; if you are going to hire professional posters (pseudo-editors if you will) to add content to your site, then why clone Digg at all? The whole point of Digg and the web 2.0 movement is to rely almost soley on user interaction and participation. A read/write web instead of the static web of old. Why not clone Wired, or Slashdot, or CNN.com for that matter? Or better yet, come up with something original.

Leo Laporte of TWiT.tv threw in his two cents, saying that Jason has once again “whipped up a nice publicity stunt”, and a distasteful one at that. He further states that the success of Digg, and the other above mentioned sites, isn’t limited to any one set of users, but rather by user participation as a whole. I tend to agree.

Here’s where the gloves come off. Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg.com, said the Netscape situation was Bullshit on Friday in his weekly podcast. Jason retorted by saying, “This is a serious discussion and I’m saddened that Kevin has reduced it to personal attacks.” Of course Kevin retaliated with this post on his blog, ending it with:

“ps – have a beer and relax, it’s just diggnation ”

I had to chuckle. This is geek gossip at its best folks!

In a related story, Netscape got hacked today. Visitors to the site were greeted with a pop-up message saying”Hi to all you diggers out there“.
You can’t make this stuff up.