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Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

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Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#51

Post by frou_dh »

petegrif wrote: post #46
fuckyoudalton wrote: post #20

SERIOUSLY, 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 statisti…

Good lord. There really are some strange angry people out there.

And they are best dealt with by ignoring them, not fielding a bunch of one-liner putdown attempts.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#52

Post by vandershraaf »

briandear wrote: post #43
andrew_simone wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "sticking it to the man" you mean "creating a business model based on an open api and not the content in the platform the API uses," then I agree. The problem with Twitter and Facebook is that they've moved away from supporting external developers into media companies (so the argument goes). If that's true, then Twitter and Facebook are looking for the best interests of it's advertising partners like every medi…

So what's the business model? Are there enough developers willing to pay real money for access to an API? It seems hard enough to get developers to actually buy a license for Sublime or TextMate (or even pay $0.99 for a song on iTunes.) I could see some potential in the enterprise space to license out the API for companies to then build their own information services atop of.. but that seems to get away from the "pow…

Exactly. People would consider a mobile apps outside 99 cents mark as expensive, even more so if it costs you $50

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#53

Post by pdog »

After August 13, how much can the business model of App.net change?

Is it possible that a free-tier could be added that allows the average user to access and use the service without paying? Additional developer & other features would be available to those who pay for them.

In determining a business model for App.net, it seems they've never addressed why there isn't a free tier.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#54

Post by jumpbug »

andrew_simone wrote: post #45
jumpbug wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you took Facebook and Twitter making a few people mad lately out of the equation, this is a mediocre idea at best. I think its feeding off of people's temporary anger at the situation. I think it will pass.

It would be mediocre if it was simply an "open api" twitter/facebook but, given the chatter on the Alpha site and the look of the API on git ( https://github.com/appdotnet/api-spec ), I think there is something bigger going on here.

Its a cool api, and I mean no disrespect to anybody involved like the guy said above, I just believe the business as a whole is a kneejerk reaction to a couple of well connected people and sites getting the rug pulled out from under them. It would be cool if they could get enough people to use it, but the API is only useful if there is useful data to pull from it.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#55

Post by jjb123 »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #37
mattlong wrote: post #34

It seems that development is going full steam ahead even though the project hasn't reached it's funding goal yet. What happens if the goal isn't met by the deadline? I can't imagine Dalton will just drop it. I guess what I'm asking is, what's the significance of the funding goal being met or not? Am I missing something?

If they don't meet the goal, they don't get any money from people who have already pledged. So it's very significant.

Is the funding goal about the financial significance? I'd argue it's more about the significance of proving there are 10,000 paid members as the foundation for the community (a notion of PG's that Dalton has referenced).

I'm a backer, and I'd argue the brilliance of this is two-fold: Dalton gets to spend a month to see if there is enough demand to build this out for an initial community (instead of 8 months finding out the hard way), and us as backers will only be charged if there is a critical mass of interesting folks to launch the community.

Neither of these are about the financial significance of $500,000 or $200,000 for that matter.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#56

Post by cmelbye »

blntechie wrote: post #41

The only reason I didn't sign up was that I felt that I'm paying for the cause and not the product. Not that I support the reason behind app.net but it just makes me hesitate. If it's simple as "pay for this great product", I might have. Good luck on meeting your funding goal!!

You are paying for the product though... You're paying for an account and alpha access to the product.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#57

Post by glanch »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #35

I would have worded a message like this much differently - I would keep it positive. I would not mention my app name and the word vaporware in the same article, I would just include the bit where I demonstrate who is using app.net, and link the code. I would also not give lip service to doubters who say the funding goal won't be reached. This message may feel nuanced to the author, but it's tone is negative and defen…

I agree. Dalton came off as extremely antagonistic and negative in his Kickstarter video as well. I could feel the anger in his voice.

There has to be a more positive, uplifting way to communicate the reason app.net exists. You catch more flies with honey, etc.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#58

Post by gfodor »

sdqali wrote: post #9
maxwin wrote: post #4

I 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…

"And if it doesn't scale, the paying members will leave eventually." Could you explain why you think so? I would think that the fact that it is a paid service will reduce the amount of noise in the system and a lot of people would value a social network with less noise.

what exactly constitutes 'noise' in a social network? if you're talking about the issue of having lots of stuff in your feed from people who you are not interested in, there is an easy solution: unfollow or unsubscribe from them! if your concern is more about having specific posts surfaced from people, but not all of them ("I'm interested in Bob's tech posts, but not his cat posts") then this has nothing to do with paid vs free and is a filtering/algorithm problem.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#59

Post by jmduke »

ghshephard wrote: post #28
maxwin wrote: post #4

I 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 listen to the podcasts of precisely six people . Four of those six people have already voiced support for join.app.net ((Dan Benjamin, John Grueber, Marco Armenti, John Siracusa). I expect the other two would join fairly quickly, and, given the "open" nature of join.app.net, I expect anybody who wanted cross-posting from twitter over to join.app.net, wouldn't have much difficulty. Just have the client post on both…

Honest question: what stops you from simply browsing a twitter list of those twelve people?

Or, more pragmatically: what incentive do I, a person who doesn't really care about 'openness' and uses Twitter for a billion other reasons anyway, have to pay $50 and subscribe to app.net instead of just following the twitter list of those twelve people?

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#60

Post by anu_gupta »

look_lookatme wrote: post #33

Just to be clear, app.net is a centralized messaging service, to be owned and operated as a private company, allowing integration to whoever it sees fit, at whatever cost it sees fit? The upside is they promise not to show ads?

No, the upside is that as app.net relies on people paying money, the users are customers instead of being the product.
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