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App.net funded with $500,000.

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Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#81
post #4

I love this. In years past, Dalton and his team were able to raise millions in funding from a top-tier venture capital firm. But raising $500,000 in revenue from his target customers, that's a whole different ball game! Super excited to see where this goes. Congratulations to Dalton and the whole team!

One interesting difference is that the $500,000 comes with nearly 8,000 paying customers. Venture funding doesn't usually come with a few thousand users!

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#82
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more fundamentally about this: Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)? A lot of people don't want to be the product and believe when a company focuses on them as a customer rather than them as eyeballs to be sold to advertisers, who are the customer, then a better service is the outcome for the users of the service. With app.net the user is the customer. With Facebook and Twi…

> Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)? So, what explicit rights does the customer have over that which they get with Facebook or Twitter? Do I have voting rights for features? Is the business model solid? I mean, $500,000 is great and all, but that needs to last an entire year all while supporting future development. Sure, they can get new people on board, but what's their plan…

At the very least it means that I - as someone that values privacy - do not have to be in a necessarily antagonistic relationship with the company that provides the service.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#83
post #79
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more fundamentally about this: Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)? A lot of people don't want to be the product and believe when a company focuses on them as a customer rather than them as eyeballs to be sold to advertisers, who are the customer, then a better service is the outcome for the users of the service. With app.net the user is the customer. With Facebook and Twi…

"Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)?" Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it?

> Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it?

Where's the evidence that suggests millions of people have to join?

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#84
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more fundamentally about this: Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)? A lot of people don't want to be the product and believe when a company focuses on them as a customer rather than them as eyeballs to be sold to advertisers, who are the customer, then a better service is the outcome for the users of the service. With app.net the user is the customer. With Facebook and Twi…

And then there's Diaspora and Identica where you're neither product nor customer...

Or you could just install AdBlock. The argument about privacy doesn't really makes sense either, it is still a private company/product.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#85

That's pretty amazing. Clearly app.net is tapping into something that people are starting to feel pretty strongly about--the benefits of "free" aren't necessarily worth the consequences in the longterm. I could see a similar model of aligning user/company interests rather than advertiser/company interests working for other services--email probably being the biggest that comes to mind. This is actually a good thing fo…

Clearly app.net is tapping into something that people are starting to feel pretty strongly about--the benefits of "free" aren't necessarily worth the consequences in the longterm. Well, maybe. Let's remember that Twitter has more than a hundred million accounts, while App.net has ~7500; we have no evidence that the people feeling that are not just a small number of outliers, much like there always will be.

  > Well, maybe. Let's remember that Twitter has more than a hundred million accounts, while App.net has ~7500; we have no evidence that the people feeling that are not just a small number of outliers, much like there always will be.
Does it matter if they don't get hundreds of millions of accounts, as long as the business is sustainable and users enjoy the service?

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#86
post #56
post #4

I love this. In years past, Dalton and his team were able to raise millions in funding from a top-tier venture capital firm. But raising $500,000 in revenue from his target customers, that's a whole different ball game! Super excited to see where this goes. Congratulations to Dalton and the whole team!

This is awesome, it even looks like the "funding bar" graphic breaks when it gets to 100%... Brilliant.

Not sure that's on purpose. The inner DIV is set to 106.08% width. Seems they are 106% funded.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#87
post #79
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more fundamentally about this: Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)? A lot of people don't want to be the product and believe when a company focuses on them as a customer rather than them as eyeballs to be sold to advertisers, who are the customer, then a better service is the outcome for the users of the service. With app.net the user is the customer. With Facebook and Twi…

"Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)?" Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it?

[deleted]

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#88
post #60
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the response, but that doesn't really answer the question of what the service provides that Facebook or Twitter doesn't. Are ads in and of themselves really a huge problem? I don't find myself often annoyed by them. Now if there were a systemic change to the service because you didn't have to alter the experience for users to generate ad revenue, then I begin to understand. However if this is the idea, t…

It's more fundamentally about this: Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)? A lot of people don't want to be the product and believe when a company focuses on them as a customer rather than them as eyeballs to be sold to advertisers, who are the customer, then a better service is the outcome for the users of the service. With app.net the user is the customer. With Facebook and Twi…

> A lot of people don't want to be the product and believe ...

It seems to me that the vast majority of people do not care and will just use whatever everyone else is using. If open-source, federated alternatives such as Identica do not have many users, then I don't understand how App.net can hope to get enough to matter.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#89
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)?" Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it?

> Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it? Where's the evidence that suggests millions of people have to join?

Isn't that self-evident? People post to Facebook and Twitter to be heard. Currently, they seem to post on App.net about App.net. That's not sustainable.

Personally, I use Twitter mostly to talk to people in the fields I work in, namely hacking and journalism. I don't see how either of those communities will move to App.net wholesale. If you want me to pay money just to have a conversation with you, I'm probably going to decide to just not have the conversation.

Ads on Facebook and Twitter don't bother me. I won't be paying to get rid of them. I don't even use AdBlock to get rid of them for free (partially because I think it's unethical to do).

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#90
post #79
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more fundamentally about this: Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)? A lot of people don't want to be the product and believe when a company focuses on them as a customer rather than them as eyeballs to be sold to advertisers, who are the customer, then a better service is the outcome for the users of the service. With app.net the user is the customer. With Facebook and Twi…

"Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)?" Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it?

Recent decisions made by Twitter are all about optimizing the site for advertising revenues.

I don't think Twitter has any other choice because they chose the free path from the start. I highly doubt Twitter would suddenly switch to a premium/freemium model.

While Twitter has empowered revolutions, I think the quality of the community has degraded though.

I believe that if people pay for being part of a community, people would care to improve its quality. If something is free, people just won't take care of it.

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