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Why startups should care about App.net

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Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#21

Post by tg3 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #15

It's more like Salesforce.com than it is like Twitter in terms of business model -- that's interesting. Will it work though? SFDC started out with a product that had clear enough value to sell seats at $60+ a month and then there was a large market for apps built on top of their platform. And note that if you sell somebody an app in Salesforce, you're adding something to their recurring bill. App.net sounds like an "…

Your Salesforce analogy also reminds me of Heroku - they sell you on the core product, which is hosting, but they have a large enough market that they can invite 3rd parties to develop apps (Add-ons in Heroku's parlance) for their users.

I think App.net is missing that "Killer App" that brings people to the platform in the first place. Perhaps they were thinking that would be Alpha, but it doesn't seem to be working so well.

Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#23

Post by fakeer »

jokull wrote: post #19
TomAnthony wrote: post #16

I didn't realise until this article that Alpha != App.net. Now that I do, a couple of problems spring to mind: * For startups, user acquisition often remains the biggest hurdle to success. Here they have to sting the user for a monthly subscription even to try the app. Asking people to open their wallets is going to massively reduce the people a startup get through the doors. * There are billions of active users on F…

Exactly. I’m afried App.net will die soon if they can’t figure out how to appeal to anyone trying to build a business (not hobbyists making free apps, because charging your users to create an account has be a negligible part of your value proposition). The only way to fix this problem is by having a generous free tier or by allowing the app pulling in new users to remain free forever, for those users you brought in t…

I am not sure if this business decision by Marco was made for the same reason I am speculating but I am doing it anyway - they recently opened the door for free users(invite only) and some usage limit which IMHO is the limit most of the paying users would be practically exercising unintentionally, because there just not many people to interact with. So, they just needed more users and instead of opening the sluice gate they made a crack in it; of course lowering the cost was another crack!

Besides, everybody who is on App.net is on Twitter/Fb and posts whatever they post on either sns.

Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#24

Post by fakeer »

orangethirty wrote: post #22

I hate to say it, but I still don't get what app.net is. I even thought it had gone down under.

They were building a social network, then it became an ecosystem - I just can't see any economy out of it other than paying users paying for it to tweet each other in more than 140 chars. Oh, and now some free users too(which includes yours truly; I tweeted there once).

Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#25

Post by fakeer »

comex wrote: post #20
lkrubner wrote: post #7

I find people's attitudes on HN difficult to decipher on this issue. Run this search on Google: posthaven site:news.ycombinator.com the full URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=posthaven+site%3Anews.ycombi... and for App.net: https://www.google.com/search?q=posthaven+site%3Anews.ycombi... On HN, those 2 sites are roughly equal, or possibly PostHaven gets a little bit more attention. Why is that? Both sites offer mic…

On the contrary, my memory is that while Posthaven had a few front page posts as it launched and has since been mostly left alone, app.net has had a constant barrage of them during its "kickstarting" and afterward. Your own Google link seems to bear that out. There are certainly commenters in every thread dismissive of app.net - probably more than of Posthaven, since where Posthaven's entire reason for existence is t…

App.net http://cl.ly/OSPc Posthaven http://cl.ly/ORwQ

Right, that is safely 40% less :-)

Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#26

Post by fakeer »

aviswanathan wrote: post #6

I sort of understand the reasoning behind App.net, but I'm worried that its developer focus will prevent many average users from joining the service and prevent it from really providing the social layer that's necessary to actually build something network-driven out of it. The reason Facebook and Twitter are popular platforms are not necessarily because of their particular features or user data but because of the mas…

Even if they could have pulled some stunning and innovative UI, sparkling apps on all the platforms(at least major ones; by this I mean Android included), it could have been an irresistible platform. Sth that was useful to people other than being a paid Twitter replacement - mostly.

WhatsApp comes to mind.

Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#27

Post by minimaxir »

fakeer wrote: post #25
comex wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, my memory is that while Posthaven had a few front page posts as it launched and has since been mostly left alone, app.net has had a constant barrage of them during its "kickstarting" and afterward. Your own Google link seems to bear that out. There are certainly commenters in every thread dismissive of app.net - probably more than of Posthaven, since where Posthaven's entire reason for existence is t…

App.net http://cl.ly/OSPc Posthaven http://cl.ly/ORwQ Right, that is safely 40% less :-)

I'd recommend you do a Custom Search starting from 2/18/13, the date Posthaven was announced, in order to do a fair apples-to-apples comparison. The results are much different. :)

Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#28

Post by rrbrambley »

If you still don't get what it's about, just take a few minutes to join and explore the different applications that are available. At the risk of appearing spammy, here are some invites to the free tier:

https://join.app.net/p/nybhfhmhms https://join.app.net/p/rgvngqrnhh https://join.app.net/p/chvcvtwbjf https://join.app.net/p/dgccmgvzyx

Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#29

Post by downandout »

In the Facebook era, I think people have a hard time seeing the value of paying for ad-free models like App.net where free alternatives are available. Even Wikipedia has a hard time raising enough money through through their "just beg for it" revenue model, and they generate a significant amount of user ire in the process. 99% of their users would much rather see ads than put up with their invasive virtual panhandling.

While the motivation behind such models may be noble in the eyes of their developers, the whole "ads are evil" notion simply doesn't make sense to most of the general population. Accordingly, most of these models are doomed for failure. If my goal is maximum distribution, I will always choose to develop for a free platform.

Re: Why startups should care about App.net

#30

Post by comex »

minimaxir wrote: post #27
fakeer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App.net http://cl.ly/OSPc Posthaven http://cl.ly/ORwQ Right, that is safely 40% less :-)

I'd recommend you do a Custom Search starting from 2/18/13, the date Posthaven was announced, in order to do a fair apples-to-apples comparison. The results are much different. :)

Although app.net has the advantage of time, including the launch hype about Posthaven but not app.net is quite unfair :)

Anyway, I think number of Google results is a bad measure, since it counts posts and comments equally, and seems somewhat arbitrary in its choice of comments.

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