Kinda ominous that the main Twitter alternative right now is GAB.
Not even close.
App.net is shutting down
51–60 of 191 posts
Re: App.net is shutting down
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just honest, but a morally upstanding one. Not sure what more you can do when the business isn't going well. 2+ years of maintenance, open sourcing, 2 months notice, data export, no additional billings. Respect to Dalton and the team.
Open sourcing, data export and a 2 months notice forward are pretty respectful in my book. I wish these where standard procedures for the industry.
On the flip side, it was users demanding free service (under which I include gracious data export) that killed the product in the first place.
I hope we find a way to pay for this stuff more than I hope getting it free becomes standard.
Re: App.net is shutting down
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also it's pretty awesome to see a shutdown accompanied with an open sourcing. If every startup did this, we'd have a ton more open source code out there to play with.
> If every startup did this... But then every startup would have to shut down!
So... Every startup? Except the big companies!
Re: App.net is shutting down
#54So to recap, Twitter exploded onto the scene in 2007, the "fail whale" appeared a lot, developers made all sorts of wonderful programs hooked into Twitter, the fail whale disappeared, Twitter started to destroy the app ecosystem, App.net launched to great fanfare in response to Twitter's knuckleheaded anti-developer stance, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber arrived and knocked all the nerds out of the top spots on Twitterholic, Donald Trump came and bludgeoned everyone with his bombastic prose, and now App.net is shutting down.
And after all this, Twitter still does not have a viable business model.
Re: App.net is shutting down
#55This seems like a good juncture to point out that GNU Social, OStatus, and the Fediverse still exist. It still has some believers. Someone wrote a new implementation in Ruby called Mastodon recently, which has a nice interface.
I still think back periodically to https://github.com/buckket/twtxt. Fascinating project.
Re: App.net is shutting down
#56So to recap, Twitter exploded onto the scene in 2007, the "fail whale" appeared a lot, developers made all sorts of wonderful programs hooked into Twitter, the fail whale disappeared, Twitter started to destroy the app ecosystem, App.net launched to great fanfare in response to Twitter's knuckleheaded anti-developer stance, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber arrived and knocked all the nerds out of the top spots on Twi…
Also App.net charged money for use.
Re: App.net is shutting down
#57This reeked of being dead the day it launched, so it's hardly surpising, but it's also tragic. Why is it so hard to create a Twitter alternative that's popular and effective? Does the world tend to gravitate towards single standards for these things, like Facebook, HTTP or email?
Network effects, and the existing services being "good enough"
"Network effects" on the WWW are artificial. We need to update our laws so that neither users nor developers can be punished for using any non-disruptive browsing device. A browsing device is anything that consumes data and shows it to users later.
Little guys like App.net won't stand much of a chance against the behemoths until the U.S. legalizes competition against the tech cartels.
Once that happens, sites like App.net and Twitter can compete on an even footing, and consumers will be free to choose services based on merit rather than lock-in.
Re: App.net is shutting down
#58So... who gets the domain?
My thought exactly! Always loved the domain. :)
Re: App.net is shutting down
#59So to recap, Twitter exploded onto the scene in 2007, the "fail whale" appeared a lot, developers made all sorts of wonderful programs hooked into Twitter, the fail whale disappeared, Twitter started to destroy the app ecosystem, App.net launched to great fanfare in response to Twitter's knuckleheaded anti-developer stance, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber arrived and knocked all the nerds out of the top spots on Twi…
Twitter finances (TTM):
revenue: $2.52B gross profit: $1.49B
It's only losing money because of stock grants.
Re: App.net is shutting down
#60So to recap, Twitter exploded onto the scene in 2007, the "fail whale" appeared a lot, developers made all sorts of wonderful programs hooked into Twitter, the fail whale disappeared, Twitter started to destroy the app ecosystem, App.net launched to great fanfare in response to Twitter's knuckleheaded anti-developer stance, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber arrived and knocked all the nerds out of the top spots on Twi…
With the type and amount of attention Twitter maintains it has multiple, very viable business models. Notably advertising, data sales & company tools.