I won't say it'll fail only because he's so persistent in gaining mind share. Sooner or later, someone will "acquire" this project.
Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
11–20 of 130 posts
Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#12I think it's going to be very hard to pull this off. I feel like Dalton is living in a bubble of people who are willing to pay to avoid ads. But for most everyone else, a social network with ads (that are not TOO annoying) is much better than one that ask for your money. He might be able to find enough people to pay to become a profitable business but I doubt he will ever reach facebook or twitter like scale. And if…
Depends on what you mean by "pull this off." The alpha itself is pretty beefy for the alpha's I've seen. The API isn't stable but it's certainly nothing to sniff at and the web GUI is more realized in a few weeks than twitter was in a few months (learning from others mistakes makes this easier, of course).
Dalton's pretty clear said he's "not trying to kill twitter" see, http://www.quora.com/Twitter-1/Will-app-net-kill-Twitter/ans...
Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#13Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#14I think it doesn't have to just be a Twitter rival. Twitter is heading into the mainstream direction. Focusing on news, celebrities, etc. A voice will develop if this does go to plan and Twitter could be Reddit while App.net could be Hacker News.
Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#15Who has accused it of being vaporware?
There were certainly people calling app.net and our API spec vaporware on HN and other places.
The purpose of this post is to showcase the alpha-version of our web service and API to users and developers and to encourage them to check it out. We hope that our work so far will speak for itself and get people excited about join.app.net.
Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#16I think it's going to be very hard to pull this off. I feel like Dalton is living in a bubble of people who are willing to pay to avoid ads. But for most everyone else, a social network with ads (that are not TOO annoying) is much better than one that ask for your money. He might be able to find enough people to pay to become a profitable business but I doubt he will ever reach facebook or twitter like scale. And if…
API Access , 400 daily active users and its gonna be a funtastic service for eejits* who like machine learning, personalization etc.
* Me.
Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#17I think it's going to be very hard to pull this off. I feel like Dalton is living in a bubble of people who are willing to pay to avoid ads. But for most everyone else, a social network with ads (that are not TOO annoying) is much better than one that ask for your money. He might be able to find enough people to pay to become a profitable business but I doubt he will ever reach facebook or twitter like scale. And if…
I disagree. It's not about the ads directly really. It's about the fact that the ads will dictate the fate of the service. To survive, the service has to go where the customers (which are not the users, but the companies buying ad space) wants it to be. Just look at Twitter: in order to monetize, they will eventually block third party apps from using the service, which is bad for the users, because Twitter's own apps can't compete with many top third party apps.
Looking at the users that are currently using the alpha version you can see that these are mostly tech people - developers, designers, bloggers, artists etc - who are enjoying even the current state, which just has a few hundred users. We don't really mind if the service doesn't scale as Twitter does, that might actually be a good thing. And there are services that proof that paid accounts are a valid and successful way to monetize: look at pinboard.in, for example.
Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#18Who has accused it of being vaporware?
I wouldn't say it has been accused of being vaporware, but I think the reason some people aren't backing it is because they believe it may just be an API and nothing more (when in fact there's a working proof-of-concept alpha version). Also, to those that've backed the project and want access to the alpha: email join@app.net and you'll be able to get in. :-)
I don't think it is a widely held opinion. Hopefully this move helps you find the rest of your backers. :D
Backed.
Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#19I just signed up. Actually a rather slick sign up process. Well done. Emails look nice.
Only weird thing was the confirmation of my Twitter account. To start with I selected the tweet option and the sign up process seemed to end with me being redirected to my Twitter account page, but somehow I didn't feel "finished".
So then I went back and authorised the app with Twitter as well and that seemed to properly complete the process. Maybe I just needed to wait a bit for the original tweet to be picked up, but that wasn't obvious.
Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware
#20SERIOUSLY, FUCK YOU DALTON.
Now that I've got that out of my system... Learn yourself some fucking statistics. Considering that you're a programmer/hacker (well, maybe by some loose definition of the word, but at least you like to think you are) you should at least know SOME math. Statistics isn't that hard. Have you figured out why you're a miserable piece of shit yet? That's right, it's because you got the statistics wrong. Let's walk through baby's first statistics with your numbers.
What you are trying to claim: "My project has a decent chance of succeeding".
What you know:
5.7% of failed projects on kickstarter reached the same funding percent yours has.
Only 212 projects within the same funding goal actually reached their target.
What you don't know: Enough information to draw any more useful information.
Seriously, that percent you threw out there is next to meaningless without more information. I'm having trouble here communicating clearly exactly how stupid your claim that you'll succeed based on that is. And hell, in addition, it's not even a valid comparison because it's a kickstarter statistic. Punch yourself in the head real quick and repeat after me: "I AM NOT USING KICKSTARTER THUS THEIR STATISTICS DO NOT APPLY TO ME. I WILL NOT GO NEAR A GRAPHING CALCULATOR EVER."
Now all of this is enough to make you my number 1 scumbag of all time, but we haven't even gotten to the part where I let you know how much the idea of app.net sucks. I mean seriously, who the fuck pays for a service like this? Seen how many people use metafilter vs say tumblr? And that's not even the worst problem here...
People are what drive social media sites. The only reason Google+ had a chance is because google can force it onto people's phones and computers via android/gmail/etc. Even given that it's lagging far behind facebook. Your plan on getting users is the retarded idea that giving people an API will suddenly make them want to pay you money. That might work for half a dozen of your friends and steve jobs who all think that paying money for something is a good idea even if it's inferior shit (case in point; mac os X vs linux). In the real world this simply won't fly. A regular user will see his hundreds of friends on facebook and twitter and then see the 50 bucks you're charging and the complete ghost town and instantly pick the only sane option; that is to avoid your shit like the plague.
Anyways, I've already wasted enough of my time here. You're not worth half the cursewords I wrote and your idea is, if that was possible, worth even less than you.
FUCK YOU DALTON CALDWELL who does things the stupid way (nice catchphrase).