

App.net is Destined for Failure - ruswick
http://danr.us/appdotnet

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tzm
When TheFacebook launched, you needed a Harvard email account to use it..
which had a much larger cost of entry than App.net's $50 annual fee. It was a
tightly wound coil of users that helped prove the model and obtain additional
funding.

~~~
michaelperalta
TheFacebook also had no idea what a large social network they could become and
never had the expectations to be what they are now. App.net is mirror itself
off Twitter so they obviously know how big its possible to grow. Also
TheFacebook was using exclusivity as a motivator to get people to join and
request the service for their schools. App.net isn't exclusive its just a paid
service and since its not a luxury item its not something people will pay for
just for the sake of paying.

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DigitalSea
Lets be honest here: Facebook makes roughly $0.80 per user per month. App.net
most likely will never achieve the dizzying heights of hundreds of million
users who are leeching off Twitter and Facebook, but it doesn't need too. As
Facebook has proven by their failure of an IPO, their lack of business model
has destined them for failure. At least App.net have a business plan right
from the beginning, something Twitter and Facebook never had and still to a
certain extent still do not have.

The issue with a free service is if the free service is good enough like in
the case of Twitter and Facebook even if you offer a premium paid service
people aren't going to pay because free is better, free almost always wins.
The great thing about App.net is that they're openly telling everyone they
will be charging right from the beginning, so App.net won't have to compete
with their own free offering which puts them in a great place.

My understanding is that App.net is incorrectly being touted as a Twitter
clone, it's more-so a massive real-time API that is going to give developers
amazing infrastructure and functionality to implement into their own ideas.
Lets be honest if Facebook or Twitter completely opened up their API for $50
per year without any restrictions and a guarantee you won't be screwed over, a
lot of people would buy but the problem is Twitter and Facebook are dependent
on advertising revenue they wouldn't offer a fully-open API they couldn't make
more than $50 a year off of with ads.

I was sceptical at the beginning App.net would be different, but now I am
pretty excited at the possibilities of the service. The growth of the funding
for this thing is crazy, I doubt App.net will struggle to succeed here.
Everyone loves to hate on something instead of coming up with a great idea
themselves.

Sounds to me like Dan doesn't know what he's on about here. What is he basing
all of this assumptions off of? People gladly pay $99 a year for Apple's
developer program, I see App.net being the same in that they offer a service
that will help people build great apps they can self-monetise much like the
Apple developer program only without restriction.

~~~
ruswick
It's true that App.net won't have to compete against itself, but it will have
to compete against Twitter, which is free and already has the momentum.

The API doesn't seem as massive as you think. From what I understand, it's
just a read/write API to App.net. Users of these new apps that will be built
on App.net will still need an App.net account to use them. App.net is going to
be a service, not a protocol or platform. That's not to say that people can't
build apps that use this API in interesting ways. Look at what bonfire.im has
done on top of Twitter. I'm sure that lots of things can and will be built on
App.net. But, at that point, the network just becomes another backend-as-a-
service. Not only is that not groundbreaking, but it's going to serve it's
purpose poorly, because the apps built on it are limited in scope to users who
use App.net. If I wanted to build a service and were choosing a platform, why
would I choose one that currently has 9,000 potential users in total?

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il
Yes, how dare this company focus on making as much money as possible.

They should be focusing on getting a ton of VC funding and flipping the
company to Facebook instead.

Your argument is essentially "App.net is going to fail because it has a
business model." Take a step back and think about that.

~~~
michaelperalta
The argument is that App.net has a business model that isn't going to work,
not that it has a business model at all. A business model doesn't guarantee
revenue, here is a business model I am going to sell rubberbands for $1000 a
piece and it only costs me $.05 to make them. Great business model but that
isn't going to get many people to buy. This is a very niche product that will
work if the expectations are kept in check and they understand what they have
is a niche product. There is nothing wrong with having such a product you just
have to make sure your goals are aligned with that. I wouldn't consider myself
the average user for these services (Twitter, Facebook) at all as my knowledge
on tech is far beyond the normal user and I have absolutely no issues with the
way these services are monetizing. The average consumer who uses the services
couldn't care less about the ads nor would they pay anywhere near the amount
being proposed.

~~~
AznHisoka
I for one don't even notice the ads in Twitter. Where are they? That's either
a good or bad thing. Good, in that it's not a huge nuisance to me. Bad, in
that Twitter isn't doing a great monetizing users.

~~~
michaelperalta
The ads are sponsored tweets, if you are using an extension like adblock then
you probably don't see them but regardless they are very unobtrusive ads that
don't pose much of a nuisance.

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pestov
App.net has a very smart business model. It's goal, at least for now, is not
to have millions and millions of average users, or Lady Gagas, or Justin
Biebers. It's goal is to attract industry professionals, designers, developers
who are willing and who are also capable of paying $50 a year to be part of a
limited network. At its early days, I think that App.net will resemble the
early Twitter. Its users were people who believed in its success, they were
mostly the same demographic that App.net is aiming at now and a lot of great
things came of that. The masses didn't believe in Twitter, they found it
useless - and it was a much better service back then, without them.

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J-H
I don't think App.net needs to have more users than Facebook and Twitter to
succeed. For social networks these days, quality is better than quantity.

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karimmtl
I still don't really understand your argument and I think you missed the point
completely. Sustainable sites don't need to grow like Facebook because per
user revenues are constant as usership increases, as opposed to Facebook or
any add based sites.

If app.net can make a great product, they'll find a way to sell it and people
will buy it. Not 900 million people, but many people. Add to this the fact
that they could leverage added value in certain key areas like privacy, which
facebook can never do, and it doesn't seem so bad for 50$ a year.

A couple of years ago you would have been considered a fool if you thought
that a 500$ phone would ever sell.

~~~
rizla
$50 a year is a lot to a student, or a parent with kids, or someone without a
job, or a family with inky one source of income, or if you are one of the
billions of people that survive on $1-2 a day.

That's why in places like india, Africa a $500 phone is still seen as
laughable. Even ignoring developing countries and emerging economies, charging
50 bucks is going to be a stretch and seems a bit crazy if you want to appeal
to people outside of the silicon communities....

But then again I thought twitter was a silly fad

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shortformblog
You don't think it's possible that the $50/year is just a Kickstarter-style
price to get early funding, and they're just going to charge $5 a month from
here on out?

It seems like your premise bends on the idea that the model is always going to
be like this.

~~~
ruswick
$5 a month is $60 a year, which is a price increase.

~~~
shortformblog
But it _feels_ like less. $5 is like half a meal at Chipotle. If you can't
afford that, I don't know what to say to you. That is not a lot of money.

Did you know that many professional organizations charge $100 per year to join
them? How is this different?

I mean, you totally missed my point. I'm not sure what else to say.

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OpieCunningham
Twitter-like messaging should be a protocol, not a single-source service.

I hope App.net fails.

