Warning: Snarky post ahead

Hey, here’s a good way to get more people as friends on our new social network: take a contact list from somewhere else, and then search for people on our network. Match people on our network by email address, username, or full name.

Email address? I sure hope the person I’ve been emailing has the email address to which I’ve been addressing their correspondence.

Username? Well, that’s probably not as unique… but in this Web 2.0 world, people usually use the same username across a bunch of different sites. Unless they’re like me and can’t make up their mind between nwadycki and nelswadycki. Or if they have a common name, and someone took their username on some other social network. Speaking of common names…

Full name? Sure, no one else is named Nels Wadycki. Might be more of a problem for my friend Andrew Moore. Or Carl Smith. Or Brian Cooke.

Now, I realize that Pownce is developed by a single person, and she has made a significant accomplishment in launching the service single-handedly… but Full Name? Did Leah check with anyone before implementing that? Or are all the Pownce users just supposed to know that their newly imported friends might not actually be the people they’re looking for? This seems especially true for people importing contacts from Gmail where just about everyone ever is added to your address book.