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"We have some very big news today at Pownce. We will be closing the service and Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart," says founder Leah Culver on the Pownce blog.

However, it is unclear whether the company will relaunch the site, or use it as the basis for a new website.

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"We're bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we'll come back with something much better in 2009," says Culver.

Pownce allowed users to send instant messages and files to contacts, in a similar way to tools such as Twitter. The site is now closed to new users, though, and existing users have two weeks to back up their account information using the provided tool before the service is completely shutdown.

The export tool will allow users to upload their current posts and messages to other platforms, including Vox, TypePad or WordPress.

Pownce launched in June 2007, founded by Digg co-founder Kevin Rose, Leah Culver and Daniel Burka, initially limiting new users and prompting accounts to be bought and sold on Ebay. Despite this initial attention, the service failed to attract the same number of users as more popular services like Twitter.

Six Apart is the company behind the blogging tool Movable Type, and formerly owned LiveJournal.