Much is being made of a new social media/nano-blogging/awareness application (for example, Wired, Scoble, half the net). I think some of the possibilities of this application are being missed.

One if the painful truths about the social networking types of applications is that businesses really need some of these features, and only consumers are getting them. For example, for employees to be able to ask questions of the organization (does anyone know why this customer has X configuration?) and make their knowledge available to others quickly is a powerful possibility. For smaller businesses, this may not seem as critical, if everyone is in the same office it is easy to go ask or call a meeting – but what happens when someone leaves? When the company grows and three years later no one remembers why a particular decision was made? These sorts of applications can help keep a diary of the tribal knowledge and help people get more done faster.

What I think is really neat about Pownce is the combination of features that are just dying to be used in the business context. First, what is Pownce? Well, it is a little of many things, a little bit like IM, a little bit like email chains with many people in the “To:” line, a little like FTP, a little like evite, and a little like a nano-blog like Twitter.

So what makes Pownce special and why is it useful for businesses? I think it comes down to the unique set of features that could make project work and communication so very much easier for any team with more than 1 person in it (and I bet we could find good reasons for a single person to use this sort of thing). Let’s start with the flexibility of making a post – it can go everyone (public), just friends, groups of friends or one person. You can imagine having groups for projects and instead of sending an email asking a question, post it to the Pownce group and get an answer quick from whoever is around.

The second huge feature is the fact that any message can be commented on. Some email clients will thread messages, which can work pretty good, but rarely works perfectly and email tends to miss the correct person at the worst possible time, or the right person gets the message without any context to handle it. Pownce provides an easy way for multiple people to have a conversation, in context, on a particular topic. There are so many projects I wish I had this functionality.

Next, the fact that files can be posted to the group is also huge – make it easy to get the proper version to everyone, have a discussion on the file. Basically, just like a text posting to Pownce (or an email for that matter) Pownce allows you to include a file (requirements document), a link (news story on competitor), or an event (meet at the bar after work) with the message. Couldn’t email do all this? Yep, it could – but with email it is easy to miss people, difficult to have a conversation that is coherent and is just to specific to the set of recipients, rather than a topic.

I don’t have an in at Pownce, so I don’t know if there is a business version planned. I can imagine companies would be OK with this type of thing if it were hosted withing the company’s data center and not accessible to the outside world. The next step would be selectively opening the groups to partners and even customers in some instances. I’m sure corporations will want to control access a little more carefully than the average bloke, and might want to modify some things to be more ‘professional’ but the concept certainly as legs in the business environment. There’s probably a fair bit of money in the business market for social applications.

IBM is making some moves in the professional social networking area with the Connections products. I think there is a chance this could work. Lotus really pushed the envelope (at least for businesses) with Notes, and Notes did a lot of the new things for the time. Notes isn’t leading the technology curve anymore, but the Connections line of products look promising in bringing the concepts in to the business.

You can friend me on Pownce, I go by bk127001. Pownce is currently invite only, I still have a few left, so please leave a comment if you are interested in one.