How App.net Can Change Everything

http://www.orianmarx.com/2012/08/13/how-app-net-can-change-everything/

by orianmarx • 14 years ago

47 33 14 years ago

I love the financing approach of Dreamwidth - which is to have free users and paid users, and the paid ones get more stuff, higher limits, etc.

Because you don't want to lock free users out entirely, but on the other hand, having your users also be your customers is better for everyone in the long run.

Ryan_Shmotkin• 14 years ago

Reminds me how Diaspora changed everything a year ago.

Its cool and stuff for developers...

But did anyone actually think of the other 500 Million people who are supposed to use this ?

vandershraaf• 14 years ago

It is the hype that has changed everything.

collypops• 14 years ago

That's right. Not a single person has thought about the other 500 million.

This is the beauty of the platform. No one company is responsible for solving how this applies to the masses. We get to work that out on our own. There may not be one app that has 500 million users. There could be 500 apps with different focuses that attract a million each. App.net is what binds them.

ringmaster• 14 years ago

Is there an explanation online about how a network that only has 11k users is worth $50 per year? I can almost see paying that much for the volume of users on Twitter. Almost. The value of a network that is aligned with users over advertisers is clear, but where is the value in such a small network? (This isn't a dig, but genuine curiosity.)

mechanical_fish2• 14 years ago

I would pay one thousand dollars a year to join a social network of only twenty people… if they were the right twenty people.

(And they actually used the network. That's always the trick. Renting the venue is easy, inviting the people is easy, but will they actually show up?)

As someone on App.net itself was pointing out yesterday, the current vibe is basically that of an industry conference: A bunch of people with vaguely-aligned interests hang around in a room swapping small talk. Such conferences are much more valuable in person than online, of course, but in person they're worth hundreds to thousands of dollars for a few days. $50 per year is a steal.

But, again, the people you want to talk with have to show up. We shall see how the conversation evolves.

egonschiele• 14 years ago

Out of curiosity, what are the right 20 people for you? All the people I can think of are already on Twitter, Facebook or G+...and I don't see them talking to me more because I'm on App.net.

podperson• 14 years ago

But here's the thing -- will the twenty people you want on your perfect network be willing to pay $50/year to be on it and make your network perfect?

Bear in mind that each of them has 20 people they want on THEIR perfect network.

"The internet treats cost as damage and routes around it."

I think the key trick would be creating a "free" network that lets you pay (a very small amount) for key niceness, e.g. freedom from ads and spam. Even better, take an existing free service and piggyback a paid service on top of it that adds useful value. (I'm thinking here of email where you pay $0.01 to send a message per Bill Gates's excellent idea for eliminating most spam.)

aleprok• 14 years ago

Personally I do not like the $50 price, I will not be backing app.net and I will never use one of the networks running on the app.net platform, because as ANYONE is able to build basically anything on top of the platform without actually having anyone forcing them to continue keeping their service alive, expect users and there exist ton of companies and people "Me included" who are ready to take advantage of users.

I did not back diaspora and I knew they will fail even though I knew their idea was awesome. I also think app.net or any of the networks running on the platform will never become the next Twitter or Facebook. Diaspora idea was nice, because it allowed you to control your own data by running your ow instance, but app.net wants to basically control everyone's data with the message stream interface.

I will stay slave of Facebook until someone can actually offer me better user experience or I will build my own. I also require that there is no chance of the company going under and fail. I do not accept the founders word for it, because he might have other secret plans like selling the company engineers to some big company after they get enough traction in the market.

I do not buy a product because of the company's words, even if they sound pleasing. I will buy a product if I need it.

mechanical_fish2• 14 years ago

Clearly one of the biggest challenges of App.net will be keeping the hyperbole under control. ;)

This is, I suspect, a drawback of the Kickstarter mode of operation: The momentum cycle is out of step with reality. When you're fundraising you have to build the excitement to a big wave - a wave which, judging by this post, is still building in many people's fertile imaginations.

The excitement is important: It focuses people and gets them talking and causes them to want to keep the party going. And if you're, say, Apple, you strive to kick off the excitement at a time when you can feed the ensuing wave of interest with a steady stream of finished, profitable products that people can buy and use and show to their friends.

But with these Kickstarter-y projects the product is never finished when the hype peaks, so there's inevitably going to be a crash of excitement during the long doldrum where nothing seems to be happening. In fact, what's happening is that the builders are doing the work that you've paid them to do, but the creation of actual working product is so much less exciting than the brainstorming phase. Especially when the product is experimental.

But that's how this works, so it is essential to calm down. It's tinkering time, people! Whiteboards and screwdrivers! The Age of Aquarius was not built in a week.

SkyMarshal• 14 years ago

You're right, except I think it's ok anyway because there's an expectation with Kickstarter projects that they will take time to actually produce.

People know it will be a long wait for the final product, but get excited over the process itself - it's fun, they feel some ownership of not just the product but the process, the ideas are cool, and the whole crowdfunding thing is still a novelty.

Then there's the doldrums, but that's ok because it's expected, then additional rounds of excitement as milestones are reached, and finally the crescendo at the end.

Expectations are managed from start to finish, the only thing the project absolutely must to do is deliver something worthy of the original mission statement. It also helps if they keep a constant stream of communication and updates flowing to their supporters. Seeing the progress is almost as emotionally rewarding as getting the final product.

garyrob• 14 years ago

This really makes no sense to me. Orian says that "App.net is a service dedicated to providing a new infrastructure for social web applications that will never be funded through ad revenue....App.net has publicly declared that their most valuable asset is their users’ trust."

But then he goes on to say: "A fundamental misunderstanding about the App.net platform so far has been that there will never be any ads running anywhere on the platform. I believe that is incorrect. What is correct is that there will never be any ads run on Alpha or anywhere else to fund the the operations of App.net the company."

It sounds to me that if things go the way Orian says, app.net will be fundamentally the same thing as AWS, where developers pay a service provider to make their life easier. The difference will be that in app.net's case, "concepts like users, posts, connecting and sharing" will be supported through "a scalable infrastructure and a base model".

But economically, the forces will be exactly the same. Application creators will be motivated to create free apps just as they are today, and to support them by advertising, just as they are today. And in order to earn advertising revenue that enables them to compete with their non-app.net competition, they'll want to target advertisements as efficiently as possible. So they'll have the same pressures to play games with user privacy.

The end result will be that app.net WILL be funded through ad revenue, to the same degree that AWS is, since the developers that pay for either of these services often make their revenues through advertising.

I don't see how the outcome will be any different from the traditional one from the user privacy point of view, unless app.net provides fundamental privacy restrictions that are rigid enough that these businesses can't compete financially with businesses not running on app.net, which doesn't sound like a viable model for app.net.

While I have paid my $50 to sign up for app.net, I'm not exactly feeling a lot of confidence in this model. But I haven't spent an enormous time studying it, and maybe I'm missing something fundamental. If so, what is it?

cturner• 14 years ago

The website says that by helping fund it you are committing to the first year of payments. "You will be committing to pre-paying a full year.." Yet from what I can tell that first year price hasn't yet been defined. Is that right? I wouldn't enter a contract with an undefined liability.

crisedward• 14 years ago

I like the model, except the part where you charge the developers, if you charge 50$ to developers it means developers will charge on their apps, means that users will have to pay even more

teawithcarl6• 14 years ago

Dalton Caldwell is responding to PG's call at PyCon to "swing for the fences, and build $1b large, scalable platforms".

PG suggested having the balls to disrupt Google Search itself, by building a new search platform, only for the top 10,000 über-geeks in tech. PG believes done properly, this will scale a new search engine, which he thinks is woefully needed.

That's what Dalton's doing, except to Facebook and Twitter. Responding to PG's call to be bold. And he's nailing it.

Right now, the App.net ecosystem is 10,000+ of the tech's finest minds. It feels like a private Path network, with private access to many of the top minds in tech. A myriad of heavyweight tech talent are in their voicing their support, struggling to fix social.

It's a great place to read tech. It's one of the best geek parties on earth. Twitter has lost the ability to do that "intimately for a small conference of 10,000 advanced minds".

By the way - App.net is not Twitter. The core blackbox (App.net) is an engine to build any construct upon, including (but not limited to) Twitter innovation.

The current client, a 'referential implementation' (which looks like Twitter ... Orian calls it Alpha) is only a proof of concept by Dalton, to show one excellent construct on top of the broader App.net engine.

I think Dalton has nailed PG's challenge, and innovators want in on the fun.

andrew_simone• 14 years ago

I think much of the push back to App.net comes from not understanding the context in which Dalton et al. is building the platform.

Frankly, it wasn't until Dalton linked to PG's write-up of his PyCon talk that I really began to understand what his intentions were.

The write-up: http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ITLdmfdLI

thinkingisfun4• 14 years ago

"Right now, the App.net ecosystem is 10,000+ of the tech's finest minds"

that made me smile, then I realized you're serious, which kinda gave me a shudder.

unless "tech" is code for "marketing scripts" or something? sure you can NOT be talking about technology in general. that would be so deluded, it might just about wrap around to humble again.

teawithcarl6• 14 years ago

Look through the list for yourself: (it's free)

http://alpha.app.net/teawithcarl/following (270 people, a who's who of Silicon Valley)

teawithcarl6• 14 years ago

Please view this tweet, (by Paul Graham) joining.

Paul Graham (@paulg) on Twitter 8/12/12 2:46 PM @AppDotNet I'm backing App.net. Sign up here: http://join.app.net/ #joinus

drharris3• 14 years ago

  It is the brainchild of Dalton Caldwell and Bryan Berg, co-founders of Mixed Media Labs. The vision for App.net was crystalized as an audacious proposal from Dalton after [...]

This makes it sound like it's the idea that will define the modern era of computing. I'm pretty sure that half the internet has thought of making "Twitter, but charge for it."

  The most interesting social applications we’ll see in the next phase of the web will be built on App.net.

Let's relax a bit on the hyperbole surrounding this thing. It's a paid Twitter, and only a small percentage of people pay for anything. Of those services, only a small percentage actually makes it more than a few years. This is not "the next phase of the web".

teawithcarl6• 14 years ago

It's not Twitter. I'm pretty sure you didn't finish reading Orian's article.

Essentially, two ideas are happening simultaneously, which is why most people (including talented engineers) still think this is a Twitter clone. It's not at all.

The client Dalton built to "display,the API engine" is indeed a Twitter-esque client. Well-built, and has features better than Twitter, such as no advertising, and a fascinating gaggle of talent posting, like early Quora.

However, it's the APP.net "engine" that's actually the jewel. It's an open platform API that G+, FB, Twitter do NOT have. Think a DIY Anduino environment, but in software not hardware. Many 3rd party devs are stoked to build to this far richer, far deeper into the engine open API.

as well, I'm struck by just how many earliest Twitter users (Twitter ID less than #9999) are in there.

Finally, I sincere do believe this Silicon Valley street brawl is indeed (even though you pooh-pooh it) an idea which will define the modern era of computing. In the same way, Linux servers destroyed Windows servers in the early '90's, via a more open platform. Open platforms win.

thinkingisfun4• 14 years ago

Open platforms are nice, but open standards are nicer. So yeah, open platforms win, for a while. But they're still more part of the problem than of the solution.

drharris3• 14 years ago

Linux servers have only "destroyed" Windows servers in... wait for it... Silicon Valley. Believe it or not, Windows still beats Linux on the worldwide server market 2 to 1, and demand is increasing. It doesn't surprise me at all that the early Twitter users are also early App.net users, because they're all in... wait for it... Silicon Valley.

I read the article (and many others), and understand the platform and what it represents. It's not a difficult concept; I've had a few non-technical friends basically pitch the same business to me. I also understand what actual users want (because I'm not in... Silicon Valley). Users want free services, unless it reduces a pain point in their lives. Social networking produces (not reduces) a pain point in people's lives, so it had best be free or ad-based to get actual traction (again, SV users do not count as traction). Twitter was only a success because it captured the celebrity crowd, and I use the term "success" loosely.

So, let's reduce the hype a bit. It's an API, just an API like any other, and it's being run by a business that claims they're going to keep it open (businesses always keep their promises). It might succeed, it might fail, who knows. But until it does either of those things, calling it the next platform of the web is a bit silly. "Ooh, but it's Dalton," you may say. Guess what: those of us not in SV do not care about SV celebrity. Neither does my grandma, or cousins, or coworkers, or anyone else that needs to be sold in order for this thing to work.

teawithcarl6• 14 years ago

Think APP.net is a Twitter Clone ? Then, You're Missing the Point. ... by Mathew Ingram,,GigaOm

http://wp.me/p10LZV-2jIQ

recursive• 14 years ago

It really sounds like framework for making mobile apps using .net.

MisterBastahrd• 14 years ago

App.net will change nothing. The vast majority of users will not switch from Facebook or Twitter unless there is some compelling reason to do so.

Reddit took traffic from Digg because Digg 4.0 was a horribly bloated implementation. Facebook took traffic from Myspace because Myspace was a complete and utter mess on par with Geocities. Google took traffic from Altavista and Yahoo because their service was just plain better.

Ads are rarely ever a reason that users swap services, and because your average user doesn't care AT ALL about the trials and tribulations of developers who are trying to make a buck off the APIs of those companies, they aren't going to care about App.net products either.

0x0• 14 years ago

Exactly. How is this different from identi.ca?

henq• 14 years ago

I once hit upon a P2P twitter-clone project. It thought and think the idea is great, but you still needed a twitter account for some reason, that was a bummer.

So if someone comes with a P2P twitter clone, that would be something: - no advertising - no censoring (china!) - large cache of tweets stored for offline viewing - all kinds of additional services could connect, like history logs, searching, discovery, notifications.

A drawback would be the lack of speed, as p2p networks have delays, obviously. But this could be overcome at least partly by making followers also p2p neighbors, me thinks.

How App.net Can Change Everything

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