Netbot: An App.net Client from Tweetbot Creators

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/10/03/tweetbot-creator-launches-netbot-a-mature-and-polished-app-net-client-for-iphone-and-ipad/

by dcope • 14 years ago

96 58 14 years ago

thenextweb.com

modernerd• 14 years ago

Tapbots link: http://tapbots.com/software/netbot/

App Store link: http://itunes.apple.com/app/netbot-for-iphone-app.net/id5635...

drharris3• 14 years ago

Pay money to view a feed from people who paid money to view each others' feeds, with conversation about the feed? It all seems so meta.

diego3• 14 years ago

Just because it's money? You're also spending your time, effort, attention, and opportunity cost.

Is college meta because you spend money to work for free with people who also spend money, while learning from people who get paid money to teach you?

You're probably more used to services that monetize with ads, and encourage quantity of accounts at the expense of quality because it's good for their numbers. Nothing meta about one or the other.

drharris3• 14 years ago

No, just because it's a recursive service. A feed where the feed is full of people talking about the feed. At least, last time I checked.

Edit: And, suspicions are confirmed: http://adn.loqix.com/appwords.17:00-03.10.2012.png

barredo• 14 years ago

Now they have my attention. It is an incredible client.

joeblau• 14 years ago

This looks awesome! I was wondering how long it would take for companies with Twitter clients to port over to App.net. The App.net platform looks like it may give Twitter a run for its money.

cicloid• 14 years ago

My favorite client in the new frame... I wonder how much time did take to port the network code to App.net? And if using a different key for crossposting.

kevinherron• 14 years ago

How can something that just launched be labeled 'mature'?

primatology• 14 years ago

The idea is that much of the code from Tapbot's mature Twitter client (Tweetbot) was reused.

bradleyjoyce• 14 years ago

I'm curious as to why they created a completely separate app. Why not just integrate App.net functionality into Tweetbot? I'd certainly be much more likely to use it that way... and I even paid the $100 developer fee for app.net.

swilliams• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure the newer TOS for Twitter precludes that.

gjulianm• 14 years ago

The TOS just forbids mixing Twitter updates with updates from other social networks in the same stream, I think.

whalesalad3• 14 years ago

Yeah they're essentially identical platforms in terms of interaction. Reading a stream, replying, retweeting/reposting etc...

They already have multi-user support, I'd rather interact with one app in this way. Or better, have the client merge your two accounts so that app.net/twitter become seamless and instead of thinking about who is on where, you simply enjoy it through the window of your client and none of that matters.

But.. I'm sure it took some good work to develop this and by simply updating Tweetbot they might not get reimbursed for that dev time. Rather, the new app must've been required.

I look forward to an integrated client down the road.

nitinthewiz3• 14 years ago

People can post from Netbot to both twitter and App.net. Twitter's TOS doesn't allow the twitter app to post to anything else...

jeffgreco• 14 years ago

Two apps = two purchases.

ceejayoz• 14 years ago

If nothing else, the extra revenue can't hurt.

colinsidoti• 14 years ago

This. I don't think App.net would have worked a year ago, maybe even not six months ago. But now, with Twitter actively attacking their developers, I imagine we'll be seeing a ton of ports from Twitter to App.net.

Twitter definitely considered the risk of cutting off their development community, but I don't think they intended to hand those developers off to a competing platform. Good timing from App.net.

kmfrk2• 14 years ago

The App.net reward program probably motivated them as well: http://blog.app.net/blog/2012/09/27/announcing-the-app-net-d....

I think the App.net guys made an astute observation that the biggest hurdle to attracting developers was doing away with the perception as the platform as a gamble for developers.

It doesn't hurt that the Tapbots guys used the Tweetbot apps to piggyback on, of course.

perishabledave• 14 years ago

The reward program was announced a week before Netbot was released (that is, today). Doesn't seem like the reward program was around when they decided to port over Tweetbot.

msbarnett• 14 years ago

Unlikely (read: impossible). Even if they could have ported it in the 6 days since that announcement, there's no way they rammed a new app through App Store approval that fast. They'd probably already have had to have submitted it before the announcement given current wait times.

whalesalad3• 14 years ago

App.net will get lots of hackers and people in our community, but in terms of reaching critical mass ... I don't think it will work.

People join twitter now out of societal pressure. "What is this thing? What is this ad on the subway that says I should follow them on twitter? Who's this athlete that is now Kobe Bryant with a strange @username at the end of his name?"

Developers, techy individuals, and people who consume twitter at a high level are more inclined to pay for it.

People who casually use it to help trend the latest hashtag about #whatmenreallywantfromawoman could care less. They're not going to pay a yearly fee for this, especially when the line between this and twitter is very blurry.

p.s. I am an app.net user and own a copy of netbot.

diego3• 14 years ago

That's like saying that John Deere won't be a successful company because most people won't buy tractors.

dannyr• 14 years ago

I'm not saying App.Net is going to reach critical mass but your argument is pretty much the same thing people said about Twitter back in 2007.

dasil0032• 14 years ago

The crux is how you define "critical mass". Dalton originally defined it as 10k users. He basically said that with 10k users you can have an interesting Twitter-like service.

Others are quick to point out that it will never reach Twitter-scale. There will never be a point where 90% or probably even 50% of the people you think matter on Twitter today are on ADN.

It's pretty clearly destined to be somewhere in between, and the question becomes what utility can you get out of that? Obviously the breadth of Twitter's firehose data is off the table, but you also have a lot higher signal to noise ratio, the benefits of a smaller community, and a practical means to fend off the Eternal September.

Can ADN be useful without ubiquity? I'm hoping to test the theory that finding the right 200 people to follow on ADN will give me everything I got from Twitter and more, even if they are not the 200 most interesting people on Twitter.

timmillwood• 14 years ago

I would sign up for app.net if they supported open standards such as OStatus.

abraham• 14 years ago

They have committed to supporting open standards like Activity Streams, PubSubHubBub, and Webfinger. While not OStatus explicitly, it looks like the majority of OStatus will be supported.

http://daltoncaldwell.com/a-response-to-brennan-novak

rwolf• 14 years ago

It's important to note the careful hedging in that response. Specifically:

* Activity Streams will be read-only, except through their (non-ostatus) API.

* No subscribing through pubsubhubbub "initially." It implies but does not promise eventually subscribing.

* Similar to streams, webfinger will be published but not consumed.

* From context, the final clause about inbound and outbound syndication is through some non-ostatus mechanism.

astrodust2• 14 years ago

Still not sure why I'm supposed to care about app.net enough to pay $5/mo.

mikeevans• 14 years ago

What about $3/mo? They just introduced a $36/year plan.

nitinthewiz3• 14 years ago

The best part of that is that if the cost decreases further, you don't lose your money, you get more membership time.

pgrote• 14 years ago

I cannot tell you a good reason ... and I signed up during the announcement period. lol

For me, it came down to wanting to be part of something being built from the ground up. Heck, I am not even a big Twitter user.

diego3• 14 years ago

Netbot is causing quite a stir at app.net. Here's a word cloud of the past hour's global timeline:

http://adn.loqix.com/appwords.17:00-03.10.2012.png

johns• 14 years ago

Check out the client stats: http://appnetizens.com/clientstats

89a3• 14 years ago

What are they talking about other than netbot though?

Before netbot that did they ever talk about anything other than "When can we get a good native client"

thebigkick• 14 years ago

I find my HackerNode app is a much more fulfilling experience.

aneth4• 14 years ago

I'm an AppNet user, but pretty limited in frequency. The primary reason is that I want proper posts to facebook and don't want to post in two places. I would like to see apps like this have the option to cross-post to facebook and twitter.

Ifttt fails because it does not allow proper link posts to facebook, and going through twitter to facebook results in truncated messages.

DanHulton• 14 years ago

Bought it, have it sitting right above my Tweetbot app.

That said, it really hides the Global stream, and I'm not really cool with that. There's all kinds of good stuff in there.

lukeholder2• 14 years ago

serious yet seemingly silly question: What do i call tweeting in app.net? apping?

dekz• 14 years ago

posting? Like every other website out there except twitter. I posted on HN, I redditted this cat picture?

lukeholder2• 14 years ago

My point was probably more around branding. Posting is generic; you mean a blog post? Status Update? Tweets are known to be just 140 chars.

89a3• 14 years ago

Twapp.neting

Netbot: An App.net Client from Tweetbot Creators

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