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App.net is shutting down

blog.app.net

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Re: App.net is shutting down

#41

Post by sdegutis »

Analemma_ wrote: post #33
astrodust wrote: post #29

This reeked of being dead the day it launched, so it's hardly surpising, but it's also tragic. Why is it so hard to create a Twitter alternative that's popular and effective? Does the world tend to gravitate towards single standards for these things, like Facebook, HTTP or email?

Network effects, and the existing services being "good enough"

Yeah basically that. People don't want extensible services or open platforms. They don't want full control over their data. They don't want 100% privacy. These are all niche things that like less than 1% of people want. Most people just want a thing that does one basic job and does it good enough.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#43

Post by kylec »

xwowsersx wrote: post #35
kylec wrote: post #10

This is an unfortunate, but not unexpected, end of an era. App.net was created at a time when discontent was high with how Twitter was treating its users and 3rd party app developers. Even though App.net wasn't hugely successful, its existence provided a needed check against Twitter exercising user-hostile control over their platform. However, it has not been a viable platform (one that people actually used) for many…

It provided a check? How?

If people were dissatisfied with Twitter, they could leave and join App.net. If enough people did this and App.net reached critical mass, it could have become the default service of its kind.

Since the primary motivation for people switching to App.net was them getting upset at Twitter, they slowed down the frequency and breadth of the changes they were making to their service so as to upset fewer people and less frequently. In the end, this was a positive outcome for users that liked Twitter exactly the way it used to be and didn't want it to change.

Of course, Twitter's changes may not have been motivated by App.net at all, but even if not there was still an escape hatch for users if things got too bad.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#44

Post by elkos »

hkmurakami wrote: post #15
nicholasjbs wrote: post #7

This is a refreshingly honest shutdown notice. Congratulations to Dalton and co for trying something hard and worthwhile, and wrapping it up responsibly when it didn't pan out.

Not just honest, but a morally upstanding one. Not sure what more you can do when the business isn't going well. 2+ years of maintenance, open sourcing, 2 months notice, data export, no additional billings. Respect to Dalton and the team.

Open sourcing, data export and a 2 months notice forward are pretty respectful in my book. I wish these where standard procedures for the industry.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#45

Post by Zigurd »

App.net combined two big ideas:

1. Social networks are important enough that a subscription model is viable

2. Social networks should be built on a platform for social network applications

Obviously neither idea could save app.net. Which idea caused most of the problems?

Re: App.net is shutting down

#47

Post by Avshalom »

mbesto wrote: post #18

App.net and Medium have the same issue (why advertising is more lucrative than selling blogging software directly to content creators): Let's say for every one content creator that are on average 100 eyeballs on the content they create (1:100). Almost universally, the 100 eyeballs can be translated to more economic value than the 1, and hence why the advertising model is so lucrative.

App.net from what I understand wasn't so much trying to sell to content creators as it was trying to create a Social-Graph-As-A-Service thing. I thought the original pitch was essentially two fold:

build your network with App.net and users can basically just opt-in automagically importing their data from other App.net networks thereby reducing the friction and hopefully making it easier to over come the ghost-town problem.

build your network with App.net and tool makers (including you) automatically get a well defined/robust/tested API to write apps against to interact with your network.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#50

Post by muppetman »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #28
unimpressive wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of a good tutorial on how to quickly get set up on one of these? I would gladly join but have never really been able to figure out how . (I'm looking to self host.)

I would assume it's just a case of installing your chosen software package on a web server. I don't know how easy that is. The more mature packages are probably better-documented in this regard.

It took me about 15 minutes to install GNU Social just now (I already had a webserver with php and mysql)
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