WebProNews

Here's hoping most Pownce users haven't made huge plans for their holiday vacations.  It turns out that the launched-in-2007 company has been acquired by Six Apart and will shut its doors on December 15th, so they'll likely need to spend some time becoming familiar with a different service.

 Leah Culver

There's no shortage of options, anyway, and Pownce isn't making the adjustment hard.  "Since we'd like for you to have access to all your Pownce messages, we've added an export function," cofounder Leah Culver explained on the Pownce Blog.  "You can then import your posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress."  Pownce Pro users can even get a partial refund or free one-year subscription to TypePad Plus.

As for the details of the acquisition, financial terms haven't been disclosed, but both Culver and Mike Malone, another cofounder, will be joining Six Apart.  Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka will act as advisors.

It also appears that an important new social blogging product or service of some sort is already in the works.  Culver wrote, "We're bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we'll come back with something much better in 2009."

If Compete's data concerning Pownce's unique visitor count is at all accurate, at least 180,000 people will probably be quite interested.