
App.net: or why you shouldn't copy a successful company - astrojams
http://kerr.io/app-net-or-why-you-shouldnt-copy-a-successful-company/
======
ChuckMcM
Sigh. One of the most discouraging things of Internet 'Culture' is to be the
person who said "X is a failure" first, as some sort of street cred. Come back
in a year or two or three and _then_ tell me its dead, but a couple of months
in? Really? Hard to plot a trend line with one data point.

~~~
shawndumas
<http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/extrapolating.png>

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xianshou
The problem is not under-usage per se, but hype. Caldwell's soapboxing about
Twitter's failure to live up to its potential raised expectations, but didn't
provide a solution to the chicken-egg problem. I'm sure Caldwell & co can
build a great API and app platform, but that all becomes relevant and
compelling only once App.net can grow a community a respectable fraction (1%?)
of Twitter's size.

Of course, as noted elsewhere, it's too early to pass judgment - but it's also
a good reminder that unless you like throwing around $50s
(<http://ihave50dollars.com/>), App.net won't matter to you for a good while
yet.

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therealarmen
_Early Reports indicate that App.net is not generating very much user
engagement. In fact, most of their 10,000 daily posts come from about 250
users, a far shot from Twitter’s 150 million users and 350 million tweets._

That's not a fair comparison. How many users did Twitter have a month after
launching?

~~~
jaredsohn
The number of users is irrelevant when measuring user engagement, at least
when it is defined as the article describes. (But comparing early app.net
versus a more mature Twitter may be relevant.)

To calculate user engagement they should take the number of daily posts and
divide by the number of users (so with these numbers, for Twitter it is 350
million/150 million = 2.33 and for app.net it is 10,000/[# of app.net
users...20,000 according to the study linked to by diego] = 0.5. This isn't
necessarily the best metric since somebody could easily write a bot that makes
several posts per second, which could skew things considerably. (I don't think
anyone cares about how active peoples' bots are.)

It is quite possible that Twitter has a similar situation where most tweets
come from a smaller number of users.

~~~
diego
_"It is quite possible that Twitter has a similar situation where most tweets
come from a smaller number of users"_

It's not only possible, it's certain. The average Twitter user doesn't tweet
very much. I don't know if it's 5% or 1% that's responsible for half the
tweets (I could find out), but it's definitely a small minority. This is
expected for every content-based social network.

[http://diegobasch.com/some-fresh-twitter-stats-as-of-
july-20...](http://diegobasch.com/some-fresh-twitter-stats-as-of-july-2012)

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pspeter3
My favorite part of this is that he criticizes App.net for copying but is
using a Wordpress themes that copies Svbtle and does so pretty blatantly with
the WP-SVBTLE tag at the bottom left

~~~
Karunamon
It's a theme that you otherwise would not have access to unless you're part of
the elite few that are actually allowed to post at Svbtle. I like the way it
looks, personally.

It's on Github: <https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle>

And from that page:

 _Isn't this unoriginal?

Yes, in the same way svbtle is unoriginal. See the original ["inspiration" for
svbtle] (<http://drawar.com>) _

~~~
tptacek
The Atlantic Monthly has a theme that is only available to people the Atlantic
Monthly has hired to blog for them.

The purpose of this theme is not to capitalize on the same design ideas as
Svbtle (that's what the DRAWAR.COM link alludes to). The purpose of the theme
is to dilute SVBTLE.COM because the author is so insecure that not being
invited to a group blog makes them bitter.

A willingness to publish under one's own name using this silly WP-SVBTLE theme
says way more about the author of the blog than it does about Svbtle.

~~~
Karunamon
>A willingness to publish under one's own name using this silly WP-SVBTLE
theme says way more about the author of the blog

The Atlantic theme looks like a fairly generic news website, to be honest.

That said, wow. You are reading _a lot_ of personal bias into choice of
website theme.

I was planning on grabbing this for my personal one just because I really,
really like how it looks. If it's going to tick off people who over-
extrapolate, so much the better ;)

~~~
tptacek
I think it's a very bad idea to use this theme for your personal blog,
regardless of what you think of Svbtle. But if you want your choice of blog
theme to compete for attention with your ideas, that's your call.

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SoftwareMaven
In my mind, app.net is _incredibly_ interesting, but not because it is like
Twitter. If app.net is going to be successful, it is going to be because they
become very not-like-twitter, by becoming critical infrastructure that
applications can easily talk together with. In my mind, app.net's competitor
isn't Twitter, it's HTTP.

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salman89
OP is missing the point. I don't think App.net is going out to be a Twitter
replacement. I don't think App.net requires the critical mass or wide spread
popularity that Twitter enjoys.

Its a niche product that is serving a very particular purpose. I wish that
some blogger or journalist would try to evaluate App.net on what its setting
out to be, not comparing it to Twitter.

At the end of the day, App.net will be a paid service. It's not fair to
compare it to Twitter. There is some overlap, but for the most part this is a
different market segment.

~~~
eurleif
I must have missed something. What is the very particular purpose that app.net
serves? What is it supposed to be used for?

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mdonahoe
Im not convinced that app.net needs to beat twitters numbers to win. If they
continue with the paid membership model, then they can carve a nice niche in
the developer community.

Not related to his point, but he isn't actually part of Svbtle, right? Not
that it really matters, though I bet that annoys the hell out of dcurtis.

~~~
mirsadm
Isn't Twitters success mostly attributed to its mainstream user adoption? I'm
not sure how app.net can survive on a niche developer community if that
community is building on top of a platform that caters to itself.

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kyt
All social networks suffer from 90/10 rule (90% of the content is generated by
10% of the users), so this really isn't surprising.

Other posters have mentioned this as well, but I think Twitter has too much
momentum. Someone trying to do the exact same thing from the end-user
perspective isn't going to be able to compete.

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scott_to_s
Apart from the fact that it's extremely early days for App.net right now, this
article assumes that Twitter will remain as it is now, and not deteriorate
further with significantly increased levels of advertising and spam. App.net
will likely become increasingly attractive as Twitter becomes more
"manipulated" to deliver on those promised eyeballs.

I've paid up for App.net because I have a zero tolerance policy to
advertising, and I don't want to be involved with services that have their
primary business model built around marketing and advertising. In this case
App.net is not aping Twitter, because Twitter will never indulge the idea of a
world without advertising.

~~~
jyap
You also do not read magazines, newspapers or watch television?

You also do not use Google or Twitter (this isn't you?
<https://twitter.com/scott_to_s>)?

~~~
scott_to_s
Yes, that's me. And no, I don't watch terrestrial TV, or read magazines.

Yes, I use Twitter now, but I'd like to move away from it, especially if it
continues to move in the direction that it's going... hence my subscription to
App.net and my comment that you're responding to.

The fact that I have a Twitter account means that it is curretly useful for
me, but it doesn't change my stance on advertising, which I do not tolerate. I
also use Twitter via a client that does not pollute my stream with
advertising, but this cannot last.

I'm quite happy to pay for a service that doesn't advertise or sell eyeballs.

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andrewhillman
I am not a paid supporter of app.net nor have I seen what they have built to
date but I'd put money on app.net evolving into something different than what
it is today. For those of you who paid into supporting app.net, I think you
paid into the people behind app.net and not app.net itself. Give them time to
flesh things out before you critique.

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gauravsc
Why are you finding problems with app.net instead of focussing on it;s good
parts and possibilities. You say and talk about some fundamental differences
with companies facebook and apple, but why should anyone believe your
assessment. Future can not be predicted in the world of technology and app.net
has a good chance like any other company.

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jjacobson
I'm glad Tim Berners Lee built a protocol instead of a platform.

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RandallBrown
>For an end user, App.net looks exactly like Twitter and it won’t improve
their experience in any relevant way that will make them want to switch.

The whole point of App.net is to be an API for other apps to be built on. The
"Alpha" app or whatever is a twitter clone, but that doesn't mean that every
app built on it will be.

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stesch
Not enough payment methods available. I would have an account if they would
offer paypal.

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jaseemabid
twitter irritates the least with ads. The same thing for linkedin or facebook
would have been a lot better. Wait.. where is diaspora?

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goggles99
Yeah, I guess the NFL season has started - here comes the _Arm Chair_
quarterbacks.

What did you expect from App.net. I think you are suffering from setting your
expectations too high. It is designed to fill a niche - and it actually has a
more sustainable financial outlook than Twitter.

