The Great App.net Mistake • Hacker News Board

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#11

Post by AznHisoka » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #9

From the beginning I've quietly predicted that if App.net is ever going to succeed, they will eventually end up going with a more traditional business model where they charge developers for the capacity their applications use (in my mind, they would end up resembling Firebase). Dalton will write up some charismatic blog post about why this is the right move, and how it was really part of the plan all along. Some peop…

Then 4 years later, he'll write a blog post on why selling the company to Twitter/Google/Facebook will be the best move. And how burnt out he is, and how he's leaving to pursue "other dreams". And people will congratulate him.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#12

Post by johns » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:59 PM UTC

pavedwalden wrote: post #8

zalew wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Alpha was the first product out of the gate, launched in reaction to something Twitter did. Subsequently, much development was in building Twitter-like things. So its little wonder that people associate App.net with, well, Twitter. And once people form an idea of what a product is, it becomes very hard to change that idea. "

That is a shame. 90% of the criticisms I've seen of App.net were mocking it for being 'an open source twitter' and completely ignored its ambitions to encompass general social network features.

Or that it's not open source.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#13

Post by recursive » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 9:07 PM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #6

zalew wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Alpha was the first product out of the gate, launched in reaction to something Twitter did. Subsequently, much development was in building Twitter-like things. So its little wonder that people associate App.net with, well, Twitter. And once people form an idea of what a product is, it becomes very hard to change that idea. "

To be more explicit, the mistake is on the part of the people with the wrong idea of what App.net is. At least that's how I took it.

Why is the idea that app.net is a paid version of twitter so pervasive? That's what I thought until today. Perhaps it's my fault for being wrong, but if that particular mistake is so widespread, perhaps app.net is also making a mistake by not addressing it harder.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#14

Post by aaronbrethorst » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 9:22 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #13

andrewflnr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more explicit, the mistake is on the part of the people with the wrong idea of what App.net is. At least that's how I took it.

Why is the idea that app.net is a paid version of twitter so pervasive? That's what I thought until today. Perhaps it's my fault for being wrong, but if that particular mistake is so widespread, perhaps app.net is also making a mistake by not addressing it harder.

    Why is the idea that app.net is a paid version
    of twitter so pervasive?

Because this is exactly what it was laid out to be when it was first announced.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/12/app-net-reaches-its-500k-fu...

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#15

Post by fusiongyro » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 9:25 PM UTC

AznHisoka wrote: post #10

zalew wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Alpha was the first product out of the gate, launched in reaction to something Twitter did. Subsequently, much development was in building Twitter-like things. So its little wonder that people associate App.net with, well, Twitter. And once people form an idea of what a product is, it becomes very hard to change that idea. "

They wanted to build an open, paid version of the Twitter API/ecosystem. But the value of the Twitter API lay in the access to their 100 million+ users, and all the valuable social data generated by those 100 million+ users. No amount of "open infrastructure", no matter how clever can ever replace that. It's like buying 1000 data centers in every country, and building an entire system that can handle a billion concur…

Why do I have to read this comment every time App.net gets brought up? Is every conversation about App.net doomed to turn into a debate about whether it will succeed, and if not why?

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#16

Post by wmf » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 9:31 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #9

From the beginning I've quietly predicted that if App.net is ever going to succeed, they will eventually end up going with a more traditional business model where they charge developers for the capacity their applications use (in my mind, they would end up resembling Firebase). Dalton will write up some charismatic blog post about why this is the right move, and how it was really part of the plan all along. Some peop…

Good point. In the last App.net thread I said they'll probably need a killer app to get people to sign up. But if people are mostly in it for one app, why should that app settle for a slice of referral revenue? More likely the killer app would prefer to own the customer billing relationship and send a slice of revenue to App.net.

I don't see why we should criticize them too much if they change business models, though. If this was so easy that you could get it right on the first try, it would have been done already.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#17

Post by ewest » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 9:32 PM UTC

The "mistake" is at the end...

'There are no breakout apps. There is no WhatsApp or DrawSomething. App.net remains a plaything for developers...'

...it certainly took them long enough to get to it.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#18

Post by corin_ » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 9:33 PM UTC

fusiongyro wrote: post #15

AznHisoka wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wanted to build an open, paid version of the Twitter API/ecosystem. But the value of the Twitter API lay in the access to their 100 million+ users, and all the valuable social data generated by those 100 million+ users. No amount of "open infrastructure", no matter how clever can ever replace that. It's like buying 1000 data centers in every country, and building an entire system that can handle a billion concur…

Why do I have to read this comment every time App.net gets brought up? Is every conversation about App.net doomed to turn into a debate about whether it will succeed, and if not why?

In a discussion about an article written about whether App.net will succeed, that seems like a pretty logical thing to be talking about, no? It's not like he hijacked something completely unrelated and changed the topic.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#19

Post by fusiongyro » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 9:46 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #18

fusiongyro wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I have to read this comment every time App.net gets brought up? Is every conversation about App.net doomed to turn into a debate about whether it will succeed, and if not why?

In a discussion about an article written about whether App.net will succeed, that seems like a pretty logical thing to be talking about, no? It's not like he hijacked something completely unrelated and changed the topic.

I suppose that's fair, but I still find this line of thought tiresome. At least the article is arguing that App.net's problem is that it's too much like Twitter when it could be used for more, rather than the usual tired argument that Twitter's success is simply network effects, therefore App.net cannot succeed. After all, as a business, App.net is already a success; it doesn't need runaway growth to be sustained.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#20

Post by itafroma » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 9:50 PM UTC

Mat Honan deserves credit for one of the clearest, most concise descriptions of what App.net is (or intends to be):

> Imagine this. You sign up for Vine, and build up a robust friend network and library of videos. But then you try out Instagram’s new video sharing, and decide you like its editing features a lot better.

> Normally, this would mean starting over, with no friends and no files. But let’s say that both of them were just applications that ran on top of App.net. Instead of starting over, when you fired up Instagram for the first time, your friends and videos would be there waiting for you. That’s App.net. Or at least that’s what it wants to be.

Up until I read those two paragraphs, I couldn't shake the notion that it was really a Twitter clone that didn't want to be pigeonholed. Now I get it.