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App.net is shutting down

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Re: App.net is shutting down

#111

Post by narrowrail »

jorgemf wrote: post #37

less than 50000 downloads in Android and 60 reviews in AppStore in 5 years. I think you can get better numbers without marketing. Seriously, whatever you do, you need to spend the same amount of time promoting it, otherwise no one will notice. 50000 downloads is nothing in 5 years, it is 2.7 users a day. If you are in SanFrancisco you can get more than 3 downloads a day just going to the street and talking with stran…

I don't mean to pick on you, but this is getting tiring for me. When you say 'marketing' you mean advertising and promotion, because product definition is part of marketing. Sizing up the market and determining what to build is marketing (inbound), advertising and promotion is also marketing (outbound). I realize these definitions have been in flux, but I'm talking traditional MBA definitions. I feel a lot nuance is being lost on people who believe marketing is a sophisticated-sounding term for advertising and promotion.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#112

Post by sspiff »

reitanqild wrote: post #86
sangnoir wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And after all this, Twitter still does not have a viable business model. ...more pertinently, App.net didn't have one either - and they had an open API, charged real money and did all the things HNers' idealized version of Twitter would.

Maybe because the reason people use twitter isn't because it is useful but rather because Either: It is cool. So we must use it. Or: Everyone else is using it so we must use it too. Seriously: 140 characters? Feature? Everyone can read everything? Feature? The two biggest technical "features" of twitter can be arrived at by dumbing down either google+ or facebook 98%.

I consider "everyone can read everything" one of the most important parts of Twitter.

I wouldn't use Twitter if it was limited to people I already know, for instance.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#113

Post by manuw »

puranjay wrote: post #91
reitanqild wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because the reason people use twitter isn't because it is useful but rather because Either: It is cool. So we must use it. Or: Everyone else is using it so we must use it too. Seriously: 140 characters? Feature? Everyone can read everything? Feature? The two biggest technical "features" of twitter can be arrived at by dumbing down either google+ or facebook 98%.

I have no idea why anyone even likes Twitter. Beyond broadcasting, there is nothing of value on it. Every tweet has absolutely inane replies. You can at least find some half-decent commentary in Facebook post comments, but Twitter is just insane babble

Everyone has their own preferences. For exmaple, I have no idea why anyone even likes Facebook ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Twitter is the only Social Network I use.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#114

Post by homakov »

puranjay wrote: post #91
reitanqild wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because the reason people use twitter isn't because it is useful but rather because Either: It is cool. So we must use it. Or: Everyone else is using it so we must use it too. Seriously: 140 characters? Feature? Everyone can read everything? Feature? The two biggest technical "features" of twitter can be arrived at by dumbing down either google+ or facebook 98%.

I have no idea why anyone even likes Twitter. Beyond broadcasting, there is nothing of value on it. Every tweet has absolutely inane replies. You can at least find some half-decent commentary in Facebook post comments, but Twitter is just insane babble

For instance, infosec and developer community is mostly on twitter. Great for trolling and has clean interface unlike notorious Facebook clumsy UX.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#115

Post by narrowrail »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #103
kylec wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App.net came out in 2012, and while I can't really remember the specific areas of discontent that I experienced with Twitter back then, here's an article I found: http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2013/01/14/twitter-in-2012/ I think what everyone was worried about back then was that Twitter was changing the nature of what Twitter was. Twitter started placing limits on API tokens, introduced new UI in the form of cards, w…

This is my first time hearing of App.net. (This is something that happens for me regularly -- I "discover" something only by its shutdown notice making the HN front page...).

You realize that when App.net launched, it was on the front page of HN and with much discussion (relatively speaking)? Given your account's age, you were here. In 2010, Bitcoin made the HN front page and you could get 5 BTC for signing up for an email list; 3 years later 1 BTC was worth over $1k.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#116

Post by akjainaj »

macspoofing wrote: post #56
milesf wrote: post #54

So to recap, Twitter exploded onto the scene in 2007, the "fail whale" appeared a lot, developers made all sorts of wonderful programs hooked into Twitter, the fail whale disappeared, Twitter started to destroy the app ecosystem, App.net launched to great fanfare in response to Twitter's knuckleheaded anti-developer stance, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber arrived and knocked all the nerds out of the top spots on Twi…

Also App.net charged money for use.

Did it? I remember registering lots of accounts just when it launched because I had a column in tweetdeck with a search that was something like "app.net/invite-code/" (all invite codes URLs started with the same pattern) so every time someone posted an invite URL I got a notification and I could register a new account ;^}

Re: App.net is shutting down

#117

Post by fareesh »

milesf wrote: post #54

So to recap, Twitter exploded onto the scene in 2007, the "fail whale" appeared a lot, developers made all sorts of wonderful programs hooked into Twitter, the fail whale disappeared, Twitter started to destroy the app ecosystem, App.net launched to great fanfare in response to Twitter's knuckleheaded anti-developer stance, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber arrived and knocked all the nerds out of the top spots on Twi…

I think we would all be better served if the blockchain could be replicated and tweaked to become a new public publishing platform that is the equivalent of Twitter today. Access to the blockchain would then become a function of clients who follow the established spec/protocol, analogous to browsers and the web today. There are a couple of startups that are already pursuing the idea, but I think that this could only become realistic if Twitter were to die.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#118

Post by akjainaj »

jelv wrote: post #92

Sad to see them go. Mastodon, https://mastodon.social/ , is a new and positive alternative. Mastodon is a free, open-source social network server. It's GNU Social-compatible and federated. https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon Diaspora is also still going strong with 20k MAU but there is no interaction between the pods https://the-federation.info/ .

And there's also https://gab.ai if you're into free speech.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#119

Post by jug »

milesf wrote: post #54

So to recap, Twitter exploded onto the scene in 2007, the "fail whale" appeared a lot, developers made all sorts of wonderful programs hooked into Twitter, the fail whale disappeared, Twitter started to destroy the app ecosystem, App.net launched to great fanfare in response to Twitter's knuckleheaded anti-developer stance, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber arrived and knocked all the nerds out of the top spots on Twi…

Yeah it's pretty ridiculous. Also, Twitter still has an anti-developer stance. For the shutting down of App.net despite Twitter's unchanged politics to make sense, I think it's because the Twitter model as a whole is dying (which obviously includes App.net and similar microblogging services). I hear Instagram and Snapchat is all the rage now. Ain't nobody got time to actually read text these days in the days of strongly social networkified attention spans.

Re: App.net is shutting down

#120

Post by narrowrail »

sdegutis wrote: post #41
Analemma_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can see how you would takeaway that perspective, but App.net never guaranteed what you laid out. It was proprietary just like Twitter. If App.net ever got mainstream traction, we have no idea if they would have held to those principles, and history tells they would not have. The free, open, federated network's time has still not come. Most people are still coming to grips with the existence of these social networks; they have not yet jumped to the conclusion that makes App.net make sense. I believe it will happen.
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