
Ad-Free Social Platform App.net Raises Another $2.5M From Andreessen Horowitz - jayzee
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/14/app-net-new-funding/
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tsurantino
I'm confused, as I thought that part of the reason why app.net pursued it's
monthly payment ad-free business model was to ensure that it was sustainable
while providing a non-intrusive service to users.

The way that app.net did this originally was by charging it's monthly fee.

It was actually very difficult for me to find a pricing scheme for the site
this time around. So what's the plan to normalize the business? What else
besides not adding advertising or something of that nature? Tax developers?
Tax users?

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gizzlon
_"..but the two positive examples of non-advertising companies that Caldwell
cited are Dropbox and particularly GitHub, which both offer free services and
then charge for additional features."_

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robk
Traffic growth doesn't seem to be very good:
[https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=app.net#q=app.net&da...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=app.net#q=app.net&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q)

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coryl
Google trends is not always a good indicator of traffic

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Kiro
It definitely is in this case though.

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Dirlewanger
This is the first story I've heard in months on this website. Who's using it?
Has anything meaningful happened behind its paywall? Is there anything at all
besides a gimped Facebook clone or whatever the hell it is?

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Neff
There has been a lot going on in the past year for the service: * Free tier of
accounts. Limited to following 40 people, limited file storage * Multiple
microblogging clients on just about every platform * 2FA and messages, files,
search, and geolocation APIs

It isn't just a "gimped facebook clone", the App.net service is a framework
for developers to build a multitude of social networks on top of a single
platform. The microblogging aspect was just the easiest "get" for them out of
the gate. You can look at their One Year post [0] if you want to see a list of
everything that they've implemented.

[0]: [http://blog.app.net/2013/08/14/we-are-just-getting-
started/](http://blog.app.net/2013/08/14/we-are-just-getting-started/)

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BaconJuice
I don't understand app.net, I have a free account and I never use it. Can any
one explain to me the difference between app.net and twitter?

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patrickaljord
It's like twitter with no ads and no one on it. Also the api is less
restrictive than twitter's but you have to pay a small fee to use it. The fact
that the api is less restricted allows devs to build any kind of apps on top
of it and this is what they are trying to push right now.

~~~
BaconJuice
but what's is the use of their less restricted api if there are no users on
it? Also I didn't think twitter has ads does it? even if it did I've never
noticed much which means its not intrusive in any way.

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onedev
Welcome to Silicon Valley eh?

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ksec
The problem is how is it sustainable.

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workbench
This service has become such a joke.

People paid for a Twitter clone and just got a confused mess of hand wavy
nonsense about being a general purpose pipe for applications.

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lukifer
...actually, I would say that people paid for hand wavy nonsense about a
general purpose pipe for applications, and instead got a Twitter clone. :P

I love app.net, but I never use it; brass tacks, most people are still on
Twitter (which is itself a small player compared to Facebook). I'm rooting for
Caldwell and I applaud what he's going for, but it's going to take some very
clever disruption and/or pivoting to unentrench or sidestep the social
momentum of Facebook and Twitter (even Google with its billions isn't really
cracking that nut). Federation would be the best approach; it's just a shame
that that the nuances of social networks make it a much tougher problem than
with email or the web.

One potential path might be to integrate with hardware and offer some sort of
"self-hosted identity as a service", an encryption-heavy digital break-out box
that provided web, email, distributed social network, Dropbox-style app
integration, etc. The initial buyers would the people nervous about recent
spying revelations, but if the UX was compelling enough, it might have enough
other consumer benefits to cross over. I can dream, anyway. :)

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jamesbritt
G+ seems to be doing quite well: [http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/08/google-
plus-one-number-two...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/08/google-plus-one-
number-two/)

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lukifer
That appears to measure G+ for the purpose of logging in to third-party sites;
and I'd guess that to most users doing so, they think primarily in terms of
their Google account, or their Gmail account. I've heard of very little
traction with "regular people" for Google+ itself; Facebook still reigns king
there.

