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Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

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Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#4

Post by maxwin »

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 it doesn't scale, the paying members will leave eventually.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#6

Post by Braasch »

uncoder0 wrote: post #3

Who 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. :-)

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#7

Post by michaelbuckbee »

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 agree with your analysis, but it's worth noting that size/scale aren't everything. Hacker News isn't the size of Reddit (or Digg at its height) and I'm kind of glad about that.

If App.Net ends up being the 'Hacker News Twitterlike' service, is that a success or failure?

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#9

Post by sdqali »

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.

Re: Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware

#10

Post by quartus »

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…

One thing to note is that our funding velocity is not linear, it has been picking up speed. If we can keep the momentum going and spread the word, we are confident that we will hit our goal.

Regarding ads being not too annoying, people are backing app.net because of the larger goal: creating a service where the user is the customer rather than the product. This allows app.net to focus all of its resources on pleasing the user, and ensures app.net will not try to shut down 3rd party developers who are competing for advertising dollars.

To this end, app.net does not need to become twitter-like scale to create a sustainable business.

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