Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

readwriteweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 46 posts

Re: Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

#21

Post by joebadmo »

brennannovak wrote: post #19
joebadmo wrote: post #12

App.net strikes me as a half-measure. It's still a centralized system with one company acting ultimately as a gatekeeper. I want a twitter that acts more like email, on open, distributed systems that leave me in full ownership of my own content. I see very little reason for something like Twitter to go through a centralized party this way.

With enough (and the right kind of) clients a "Centralized" service could be seen as distributor to independent nodes. From there, with the right archiving / sharing features of those "clients" those independent nodes can start to become a decentralized service. The internet itself relies on centralized DNS standards organization & servers. To me, App.net (and their commitment to users being customers instead of a pr…

Maybe, but they haven't even really said anything about it. In contrast, check out http://theopenphotoproject.org/ , which has both a centralized system, but it also an open source project that you can self-host. IMHO, much better idea, implementation, and I had a lot less to be vaguely suspicious about. OpenPhoto basically did everything right that App.net is doing wrong.

Re: Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

#22

Post by jameszol »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #6
jameszol wrote: post #3

I like Twitter. I don't mind the ads. And Twitter is close to letting us download our own archived tweets: http://searchengineland.com/twitter-tweet-archive-tool-comin... If ads interrupted my experience, then maybe it would become a pain point worth addressing or paying for. Until then, I'll stick with the free, ad-supported Twitter.

Ads are not the problem, the problem is the implications of being ad-supported. How it affects policy and decision-making.

Is that implication really a problem though? I suppose for some it is. That audience is likely quite small, depending on the service of course.

Re: Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

#23

Post by jameszol »

brennannovak wrote: post #13
jameszol wrote: post #3

I like Twitter. I don't mind the ads. And Twitter is close to letting us download our own archived tweets: http://searchengineland.com/twitter-tweet-archive-tool-comin... If ads interrupted my experience, then maybe it would become a pain point worth addressing or paying for. Until then, I'll stick with the free, ad-supported Twitter.

What bothers me the most about Twitter is how, with a few sharp blows, they've destroyed the 3rd party client / app market which was perhaps the most amazing aspect of Twitter and it's surrounding culture when I first started using it in 2008

I agree. The way they are managing the 3rd party market is baffling and disappointing.

Re: Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

#24

Post by debacle »

pg_bot wrote: post #20

I don't think this project will work due to several inherent economic factors. If I understand correctly app.net takes a free service (twitter, fb) has removed the best features of those services and then wants to charge money for that product. Dalton has put himself in the position of a reverse browser war which doesn't seem very viable to me.

Can you explain what you mean by 'reverse browser war?'

Re: Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

#25

Post by 2arrs2ells »

debacle wrote: post #24
pg_bot wrote: post #20

I don't think this project will work due to several inherent economic factors. If I understand correctly app.net takes a free service (twitter, fb) has removed the best features of those services and then wants to charge money for that product. Dalton has put himself in the position of a reverse browser war which doesn't seem very viable to me.

Can you explain what you mean by 'reverse browser war?'

During the browser wars, web browsers went from paid software to free. Dalton is trying to do the reverse by turning social networking streams into a paid service.

Re: Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

#26

Post by nicksergeant »

pg_bot wrote: post #20

I don't think this project will work due to several inherent economic factors. If I understand correctly app.net takes a free service (twitter, fb) has removed the best features of those services and then wants to charge money for that product. Dalton has put himself in the position of a reverse browser war which doesn't seem very viable to me.

Well, somebody has to do something, right? He's just trying something.

Re: Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

#28

Post by jameszol »

jonmwords wrote: post #5
jameszol wrote: post #3

I like Twitter. I don't mind the ads. And Twitter is close to letting us download our own archived tweets: http://searchengineland.com/twitter-tweet-archive-tool-comin... If ads interrupted my experience, then maybe it would become a pain point worth addressing or paying for. Until then, I'll stick with the free, ad-supported Twitter.

I don't know. Twitter said they were going to launch annotations in the API, too, and that never materialized.

Delivery is always up in the air isn't it?

One argument for app.net appeared to be "controlling my own data" so I thought I would point people toward what Twitter has said about giving users the ability to download all of their tweets soon.

I hope they deliver but I'm not too worried about it if they don't. I currently archive my tweets using IFTTT: Delicious.com for the ones with links (http://ifttt.com/recipes/332), Dropbox for the whole stream (http://ifttt.com/recipes/37991).

Re: Here's Why People Are Backing App.net

#29

Post by jbigelow76 »

ghshephard wrote: post #8

Any time I can transition a service that is important to me to one in which I am the customer, I grab that opportunity quickly. I'd happily pay gmail $10/month for mail in which I was the customer, and not the advertisers. $4/month for a user supported twitter environment sounds like a bargain - particularly as all the people I suspect I want to "follow" (or whatever the join.app.net terminology will be) - have alrea…

I agree with your sentiment overall but when it comes to app.net I'm conflicted because at least half of the people I follow on Twitter are social/civic connections vs technical. As a result I can't transition to a service where I am the customer because unless at least some of those follow me the service becomes entirely different from what I am switching from. The "functionlity" of Twitter isn't the entirety of the service.

I'd join app.net if when I joined I got a few free invites to pass along to friends/family/whatever that don't really get (or care about) the "you are the product not the user" problem with Twitter/FB, or at least not in a way that they value the price to join. Something to help evangelize with. If app.net is going to be just techies that get it and will pay the premium I think it will languish a lot like google+ seems to languish among the techie crowd.

Post reply on HN