
App.net Gets First Dedicated iOS App, Passes 17,500 Users - olalonde
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/02/appnet-first-ios-app-milestones/
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ghshephard
A lot of people who didn't follow App.net/Alpha on the first go around, are
going to look at this and say, "Why on earth would I pay $50 for a twitter
clone that has 1/10,000th as many users, and that absolutely none of my
friends or celebrities are on?"

Think of App.net/Alpha as an experiment, funded by geeks who want to see if a
service can be built in which the users are the customers instead of the
advertisers. The $50, I have to believe, is "Startup Capital" to get Dalton
running with a bit of infrastructure, cover his salary for a year, and maybe
let him hire a couple designers, and developers.

This service, more than likely, is not meant for you right now, as it's just
gotten started. Clients are under development, features are being added.

Check back in six months before passing any judgement on it's merit.

~~~
jasonlotito
> want to see if a service can be built in which the users are the customers
> instead of the advertisers.

That's not accurate. The $50 is for a full year of App.net service. That's
all. Where is the binding agreement that that says what you are suggesting?

People like to quip that if you aren't paying for something, you are what's
being sold. Frankly, the same is true even if you are paying for something. We
should have learned by not that unless it's spelled out, we should be wary.
After all, if App.net gets bought out, you've effectively paid to become the
product.

So, what rights is App.net giving you for paying $50? What promises have they
made that can be enforced?

Take this:

> We will never sell your personal data, content, feed, interests, clicks, or
> anything else to advertisers. We promise.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but that doesn't mean much. I mean, you don't have to
sell the data to sell being able to advertise using that data. It's very easy
to get away with saying this and still provide data to 3rd parties or allow
for advertising to target users.

My hope is that App.net is sincere. But unless they've hidden it, nothing on
their site suggests they are doing what people say they are doing.

~~~
ghshephard
It's very accurate - If you do a poll, you will find that 90%+ don't see the
money they are paying is for a "full year of App.net service" but money to
encourage Dalton to try and do something interesting. If it was just for a
full year of service, almost nobody would have put their money into App.net, I
assure you.

It's an experiment akin to what was done with Diaspora, just this time with
someone who has both the experience and the track record to demonstrate he can
pull it off.

~~~
jasonlotito
I understand what you are saying, but it is just a years worth of service.
That's the only thing you are guaranteed. You are banking on good will and
good karma to carry you.

> he can pull it off.

Pull _what_ off? What is "something interesting?" You said it was a service
where "the users are the customers instead of the advertisers." But nothing of
the sort is promised.

> It's an experiment akin to what was done with Diaspora…

And we've learned nothing from that? You've given $50 for a years worth of
service in return. You _hope_ for more, and you hope for specific things, but
none of that is promised.

What's so wrong with asking these expectations be clarified? Isn't that the
entire point of App.net, to be different, to be about the users? If so, then
why isn't that made clear?

Nothing I see promises anything different then you see with other social
networks. Except in this one, you are paying them $50.

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jyap
From my rough viewing of this page: <http://appnetstats.com/>

I'm seeing that "Unique users today" is around 10-15% of 17,500 at the end of
the day.

Let's high ball that and say it has 3000 daily users (if we consider a user as
someone who posts based on the "Unique users today" statistic).

The greatest challenge to the sustainability of App.net will come 1 year from
now when all of the initial sign ups are up for renewal.

Who will click renew and who will say "Hmm, this cost me $50 and I didn't get
$50 worth of value out of it over the past year. No thanks."?

A subscription based model is only a sustainable business model if people re-
subscribe.

~~~
markmm
For me it doesn't offer anything new, even if it was free why would people use
it over twitter which has millions of users and content. I doubt it will
succeed unless they rethink it's purpose.

~~~
ghshephard
App.net got rolling when the Twitter started issuing letters suggesting that
developers will no longer have wide-open access to their API, would be limited
in the number of users they could have for their clients, and started sending
advertisements into their stream.

If none of that matters to you, then, right now, Alpha / App.net will not have
any value to you. Check back in six months when there are more applications
and activity.

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ralfd
App.net is a terrible name. They should change it.

~~~
ghshephard
Dalton agrees with you. I think he's leaning towards, "Alpha"

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Samuel_Michon
Just installed the app. Looks slick, but the tab bar is a bit too high for my
taste. The Profile tab doesn't work for me, it returns a 'connection error'
message. The Global feed, Timeline, and Mentions tabs work. Conversation view
doesn't always load, especially when not connected over WiFi. Scrolling is as
smooth as Twitter's app and it has infinite scroll. Oddly, the messages from
user 'alpha' (App.net's App.net account) show up empty, while they contain
content when viewed in the web interface.

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StavrosK
Can someone tell me what app.net is? From the original description I figured
it was some sort of "user feed as a service", but they seem to have actual
users too, so I'm not sure what it is.

As a developer, I take not understanding what a developer-oriented service is
as a bad sign for said service. Can someone elucidate?

~~~
zyb09
It's just a Twitter clone, that charges users for membership, instead of
monetizing them through ads or selling their data. A lot of people think that
will lead to a better service, so it got a lot of hype recently.

~~~
eyevariety
The twitter clone is a proof of concept. A better description would be that
its a paid social graph designed to be used by third party apps. Just like
Facebook apps or apps that use twitter to sign on, app.net can be used as that
identity- the difference being that app.net is promising not to put arbitrary
restrictions on how it is used.

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brianwillis
If you're not sure about joining the app.net bandwagon, it really is worth
your fifty bucks. It's become a fun place to hang out over the last few weeks.
It's like twitter, but reading the global feed is actually possible, and the
tone of the place is more geeky. No spam either, which is always nice.

~~~
markmm
How is that different from following geeky twitter users on twitter? Other
than you will have orders of magnitude more choice on twitter. I am not being
a dick and trying to trash App.net but I can't see it's utility.

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dmishe
Does it have to look exactly like twitter though? It's already hard to
describe what the hell the service is and why does it cost money, when it is
basically twitter

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topbanana
It seems to me that the best way to make money from building apps is to do so
for other people.

~~~
bodhi
I think it's always been that way. There's an old hack:

> The best way to make money in a gold-rush is to sell shovels.

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markmm
So App.NET is a twitter clone? They will need more that 17k users to compete.

~~~
railsjedi
Actually, App.net is quite useful already with it's 17k users (as was twitter
when it had that many people).

It doesn't have to compete with Twitter, just provide a growing self
sustaining user base of paying customers. Seems like an ok business strategy
to me.

~~~
rane
Will it last though? Seems to me that it's a lot about the novelty that's
making people excited about app.net.

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89a
oh christ!

please change the name before it's too late

