
App.net is crowdfunding their realtime feed platform - jamesjyu
https://join.app.net/
======
tptacek
I worry that this is one of those market sectors where the price customers are
willing to pay to use a service is dwarfed by the price advertisers are
willing to pay for access to the users --- and so the ad-supported version is
(a) free, (b) more attractive to users, and (c) more lucrative.

In a network-effect dominated business, this doesn't seem like a recipe for
success.

~~~
eridius
I can see (a) and (c), but what part of this scenario leads to (b)? The
fundamental assertion underlying the desire for a paid network is that ad-
supported networks are inherently worse for users because the network is built
with advertisers in mind instead of users in mind. A paid network may very
well bring in less money than an ad-supported network, but as long as it
brings in enough money to operate I don't see the problem.

~~~
nl
_I can see (a) and (c), but what part of this scenario leads to (b)?_

(a) [Free] makes it easy for people to join initially. More people makes it
more attractive to other people (via network effects).

Getting around that is going to be a problem.

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gergles
Wait, so the idea is that you're going to charge for Twitter, without the
network that makes Twitter worth anything at all?

As far as I can tell from the video and FAQ, that's what it is. A twitter
clone that costs $50 a year. If this is NOT what it is, you simply have to do
a better job illustrating what this platform is supposed to deliver.

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dalton
Hi, Dalton here. Please let me know if you have any questions for me about
this.

I wrote a blogpost about my thinking behind this here:
<http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal>

~~~
dsl
Your page copy and the first few minutes of your video that I could sit
through just tell me you are nerd raging over advertising on the internet. I
get that you want to do something differently, but WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU
BUILDING?

What am I becoming a "member" of? What am I funding? App.net appears to be a
way to get more installs of mobile apps. What the hell?

~~~
dalton
There is a FAQ entry that attempts to address the question "OK, great, but
what exactly is this product you will be delivering?" Are you unsatisfied with
our answer in the FAQ?

 __UPDATE __I appreciate and agree with the feedback that we could explained
things earlier and more clearly. Updates to our page coming soon.

~~~
andymangold
I appreciate the need for vagueness in your answer to the question of "What
exactly are you building?" I'm sure in many ways you and your team don't know
exactly how it's going to grow and change, and I for one would rather have the
team making this thing be flexible and reactive as opposed to building to a
spec that was promised to customers.

I think you would be able to reach more people more powerfully if you spent
more time talking about your vision for what Twitter could have been had they
not gone the ad route. As a designer working in the web industry, I am just as
excited as you are about the potential for this thing, but I think most people
need it explained a bit further to really get on board.

Perhaps you could highlight some of the really cool stuff that was built with
the Twitter API that they then squashed. Talk about the potential OUTCOMES of
this system, not just the origins of it. Hell, maybe even take some proposals
from excited designers/developers for what they would do with said API, then
use those proposals as a demonstration of the system's potential.

You've got my money.

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Maascamp
Aside from the "what exactly is this?" reaction, I just can't seem to get over
the fact that I'm being asked to pay someone to build a service I will then
have to pay for. This just seems absurd to me.

Either build it and I'll pay to use it or I pay you to build it and I use it
for free. Can't have it both ways.

~~~
lukifer
It's worded awkwardly, but I believe that a $50 donation is a prepayment for
one year of service, so you're not being asked to pay twice.

~~~
ebabchick
Anyone serious about using this for it's intended use case (from what I can
tell) would not be in this for only one year.

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gojomo
My left-brain says it's doomed. My right-brain says it's brilliant, and alpha
geeks will lead the way in a mass secession from today's feudally-managed
parasitic platforms.

So entirely separate from any quibbling about the likelihood of success, I'm
backing this project at the developer level ($100).

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badclient
Next time, please look _at_ at the camera :) I want to watch your video but I
feel like you are talking to someone else, not me.

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bradgessler
I find it amusing that people are rediscovering the age-old concept of running
business that directly charges a customer for a product or service that nets a
profit.

This post strikes me as a "gee whiz" rediscovery of that fact through the
conflation of:

1\. Web 2.0 companies that "won" were really media companies. To win you need
lots of eye balls.

2\. A person can charge more for a product than it costs and get profit, which
can be reinvested back into the product.

3\. Instead of waiting for "profit" in said point above (which is risk to you
and your company), you can instead reallocate that risk on future customers
(and gauge interest at the same time).

That said, I do admire Dalton's efforts.

~~~
dalton
I believe that the people running Web2.0 companies publicly and privately
refuse to admit they are running media companies. ie "Twitter CEO Dick
Costolo: We’re Not a Media Company" (source:
[http://allthingsd.com/20120130/live-at-dive-twitters-dick-
co...](http://allthingsd.com/20120130/live-at-dive-twitters-dick-costolo-says-
twitters-future-is-you/) )

~~~
vm
Your quote is unfairly taken out of context. Here is the full quote:

Costolo: We’re not a media company. We’re in the media business. We distribute
traffic. We’re one of the largest drivers of traffic to all sorts of other
media property.

Dick Costolo seems to understand that driving traffic - perhaps from ads - is
where Twitter makes money

~~~
dalton
What's wrong with just saying "We are a media company" if you _are_ a media
company. The definition of a media company is fairly well understood, right?
Why insist that you occupy some slightly semantically different space?

~~~
vm
Context man! He was speaking at a media conference filled with traditional
media co's, such as The New Yorker, Viacom, and ESPN. It was even run by WSJ.
To that audience, his statement highlights the nuance of traffic referral vs.
accumulating page views, which is why Twitter is potentially poised for
greater monetization than a "traditional" media company.

It feels unfair to pull that quote out of context. The point you are making is
very different than the point that Costolo was making when he said it.

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gordonbowman
What will happen to the current App.net product suite for app developers? Will
you continue innovating on those tools?

~~~
stanislavb
Yes, I'm also interested what would happen with the current App.net product.
It was a good rival of <http://www.apptlantis.com>

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ebabchick
Is this a developer-centric parody of <http://www.vooza.com>?

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smalter
If this fails, I think it will be because the video is of one dude talking the
whole time without any media at all on what the actual product will be.

That said, I hope it succeeds and I'll be contributing some of my hard-earned
cash.

~~~
btown
Some music and visuals would go a long way towards selling the product. I
think we've all been spoiled by Kickstarter, but it's 2012, and we've come to
expect incredible experiences when we watch videos of people asking us for
money: just having an HD camera doesn't do it anymore.

As it is, I watched the first minute, and I still had no idea what benefit
this would provide me as a developer or a user (only that Dalton clearly
doesn't like Facebook), so I went back to my own coding.

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inmygarage
Hypothetically let's say you reach the $500K goal. That is enough for a small
team to survive for 12-18 months. Ongoing, will I have to pay $50 per year to
use this service at the member level?

The reason I am happy to pay Github $25/month is because I want access to all
my old projects. What is your thesis around whether people really want access
to their old "feed" data (is that a proper way to describe it)?

~~~
dalton
My belief is that this sort of service will enable new/interesting
applications and _real value_ that could have been unlocked if Twitter took a
different direction: <http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been>

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arpit
A lot of my other opinions have already been brought up so I won't restate
them, but I further don't understand why you didn't use KickStarter? I dont
know enough about your funding system to trust it with my money or info. KS
has built a reputation and I trust I won't be charged in case the project goes
under (not to mention you miss out on any network effects).

~~~
jlongster
From the page:

"Why aren't you using Kickstarter?

We wish we could, we <3 Kickstarter. Unfortunately, the Kickstarter Terms Of
Service explicitly prohibits raising money for this kind of service. "

~~~
mmahemoff
I can't see exactly where this project would be prohibited.

<http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines>

~~~
dalton
"Projects, projects, projects. As in all categories, Kickstarter is for
projects that can be completed, not things that require maintenance to exist.
This means no e-commerce sites, web businesses, or social networking sites.
(Yes, this means Kickstarter wouldn’t be allowed on Kickstarter. Funny, but
true.)"

~~~
slashclee
How is Penny-Arcade's Kickstarter allowed then? (Not disagreeing, but it seems
like they would run afoul of this if it were actually enforced.)

~~~
orta
They treat it as a funding for the project of "no ads for a year" rather than
"pay to take ads off penny arcade"

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salman89
Not sure if this is supposed to be a paid Twitter, or if it is a paid platform
for developers who need a real time feed infrastructure. If it is the latter,
who owns the data? If it is the paying developer, be assured that they will
sometimes offset that cost with ads.

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lukeholder
It is like he is avoid saying this is going to be a twitter clone but keeps
advertisers out by charging a small fee for access.

If he could reproduce the twitter API so it would be easy to switch any
current twitter client, I say go for it.

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propercoil
You need to change the video so it would be clear: WHAT IS THE PRODUCT

~~~
duncan
I agree. I have no idea what he is talking about.

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dinkumthinkum
I think I am just being naive but I would like to see this succeed.

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bc1323
So developer tools for social media feeds - isnt this what Singly already
does? <http://singly.com/>

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SudarshanP
How will this project avoid the fate of diaspora?

~~~
zizee
Genuine question: what fate is that?

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rudiger
Will there be a free tier?

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omarchowdhury
What?

