I've used Twitter for quite some time. I was turned on to it earlier this year by some coworkers. I didn't get it before that. Once several of us started using it was when I thought I started getting it. But I really didn't get it until a bunch of other people from my extended community started using it.
I jumped on the Jaiku wagon once the Google announcement was made. You can't go wrong betting on Google.
I joined Pownce about a month ago.
I like and use all three of the sites/applications. They are all basically the same thing, so why do I use all three of them? One of the previous versions of the title of this post was "Why 3 different Microblogs?" Do you see the difference between the previous version and what is there now (not counting spelling, capitalization and punctuation differences)? The difference is the word "Communities". And to me that's the big difference between the three - each has its own type of community. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each has its own feel.
Twitter is the current standard. When I want to see what 60 of my closest friends are doing I check out Twitter. The site is renowned for being down quite a bit and the performance sucks sometimes. It doesn't have the features that Jaiku or Pownce have, but it has the user base. Approximately 20 of my friends and I made the jump from Twitter to Jaiku a couple of months ago. That's great. But the other 40 stuck with Twitter. I can't strand them.
Feature-wise Jaiku is better than Twitter. It works better. I feel like Jaiku is the grown-ups version of the three. It is LinkedIn vs. MySpace and Friendster. But it lacks the most important thing for me - most of my friends are still on Twitter. I'll keep using it, though, because in the end I'm sure Jaiku and Google will be the winner. Until then I'll keep cross-posting my updates to Twitter, too.
Personally, I like Pownce the best. I think it's the most feature-rich. The community there feels smaller, smarter, and more hip. There seems to be more conversations on Pownce than the other two. Pownce seems to be the place where the young Web 2.0 elite assemble. If you want to get the pulse of the Web, Pownce is the one to be on.
