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The Great App.net Mistake

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Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#61

Post by neuroscr »

yapcguy wrote: post #30
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…

It's not open. It's closed, proprietary and the boys over at Andressen-Horowitz are going to want a return on their investment.

They've embraced open standards: http://blog.app.net/2013/08/07/response-to-brennan-novak-par...

And they have started releasing client source code: https://github.com/appdotnet/

a16z is already getting a return, since App.net has been profitable for a while. It's all gravy since they've made it free to sign up. The user base is about 10 times bigger than last year. It's true we don't know how many new users are paying but since that fixed costs are covered, it doesn't really matter.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#62

Post by neuroscr »

johns wrote: post #12
pavedwalden wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are open standards not important? Just the source?

They have been starting to release the source code of the client applications they've built: https://github.com/appdotnet/

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#63

Post by eridius »

otl1248 wrote: post #54
neuroscr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App.net's API does providing more than a microblogging API. They have a file hosting (each user has their own quota), permissive messaging (point to point or group), and a search API so you can easily find anything on their system. They're planning to add more useful APIs, such as billing.

Seems like bad business strategy to build on top of those if it means it's easy to steal away your userbase. Sounds fine for mid-size apps who can't justify rolling their own though.

If your only competitive advantage is user lock-in, then you already have a problem. Either you need to get your userbase to grow big extremely fast, or you've already lost.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#64

Post by dasil003 »

TheZenPsycho wrote: post #38
dasil003 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can have your own backend that does anything you want, and just uses App.net for the social graph.

You can have your own backend that does anything you want, and is completely opaque and invisible to that oh so valued social graph, because /their/ clients don't support your magic thing.

The fact that you said "clients" instead of "apps" shows that you still don't understand the vision. App.net provides functionality that you can safely build an app on, and which is fundamentally more useful than the sandy foundations of Facebook or Twitter. That functionality is something which is non-trivial and which has potential network effects. You can use that functionality, you can extend it to something private to your own app, or you can mix and match with all the compatibility compromises that would entail. You can do all this safely without worrying that the rug will be pulled out from under you just when you figure out a magic formula that works.

In short, App.net is something with the potential to build a business on, whereas anyone trying to build a serious business (as opposed to just doing something cool) on Twitter is an outright fool at this point.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#65

Post by otl1248 »

eridius wrote: post #63
otl1248 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like bad business strategy to build on top of those if it means it's easy to steal away your userbase. Sounds fine for mid-size apps who can't justify rolling their own though.

If your only competitive advantage is user lock-in, then you already have a problem. Either you need to get your userbase to grow big extremely fast, or you've already lost.

And if you grow the user-base fast you've won, right? Lock-in and network effects matter enormously. Saying you can't lock-in the social graph neither guarantees a company won't lock-in elsewhere nor guarantees this is an appealing platform on which to develop.

This isn't a morality tale, I'm just pointing out what kind of decisions would be made around App.net and that the Vine/Instagram example doesn't really make sense.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#66

Post by TheZenPsycho »

dasil003 wrote: post #64
TheZenPsycho wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have your own backend that does anything you want, and is completely opaque and invisible to that oh so valued social graph, because /their/ clients don't support your magic thing.

The fact that you said "clients" instead of "apps" shows that you still don't understand the vision. App.net provides functionality that you can safely build an app on, and which is fundamentally more useful than the sandy foundations of Facebook or Twitter. That functionality is something which is non-trivial and which has potential network effects. You can use that functionality, you can extend it to something priv…

apps are clients.

what on earth makes you think they are not?

I understand the vision. But I also understand, as someone who has used app.net, in actual fact, simply porting your social graph into a new app does you no good. You still have to convince all your friends to also get that same app before they can see what you post with it. The vision only works with basic media, like text, and photos, posted in a very straightforward twitter-like way.

I'll give you a specific example: Group chat with photos. Yep, there's an app.net app that does that, and now, you can't see the photos unless you have that app. so what's the point? what's in the vision for this situation?

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#67

Post by neuroscr »

TheZenPsycho wrote: post #66
dasil003 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you said "clients" instead of "apps" shows that you still don't understand the vision. App.net provides functionality that you can safely build an app on, and which is fundamentally more useful than the sandy foundations of Facebook or Twitter. That functionality is something which is non-trivial and which has potential network effects. You can use that functionality, you can extend it to something priv…

apps are clients. what on earth makes you think they are not? I understand the vision. But I also understand, as someone who has used app.net, in actual fact, simply porting your social graph into a new app does you no good. You still have to convince all your friends to also get that same app before they can see what you post with it. The vision only works with basic media, like text, and photos, posted in a very st…

What group chat app is that? If you're talking about photos in patter chat, there's an established annotation for it that most clients can read and use.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#68

Post by TheZenPsycho »

neuroscr wrote: post #67
TheZenPsycho wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apps are clients. what on earth makes you think they are not? I understand the vision. But I also understand, as someone who has used app.net, in actual fact, simply porting your social graph into a new app does you no good. You still have to convince all your friends to also get that same app before they can see what you post with it. The vision only works with basic media, like text, and photos, posted in a very st…

What group chat app is that? If you're talking about photos in patter chat, there's an established annotation for it that most clients can read and use.

Whisper, patter, Netbot doesn't support it. I don't know of any application other than whisper/patter that does.

My basic point is, the app.net vision is fundamentally flawed. It's not just a matter of positioning/marketing. It's the same fundamental flaw that google wave had. The vision is that app.net is a protocol, but you can't market protocols to people. you can only market apps. or more specifically, you can only market specific solutions to specific problems, or some fundamentally human vision (rather than a technological one)

With the app.net vision, any app you get that happens to use app.net as a back end will be subtly and frustratingly broken in some way because there's this feature, or that feature that your friend used that you can't see, because you have the wrong app. There's no commonality, there's no ultimate app that does all the things. With twitter, at least you get a link, something everyone understands, to a webpage, read in the ultimate universal client-a web browser. On app.net you just get mysterious silence. and "oh, that didn't work for you? huh..."

app.net is the linux of social media. Nerds love it but mortals will never get on board.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#69

Post by spullara »

neuroscr wrote: post #50
spullara wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point wouldn't you be better off using a bigger social graph?

Twitter only allows you access to 100k users or so (tokens), and your business is at risk of being turned off. or App.net providers you access to 150k+ users growing user base. Plus an a free sign up, access to hosting for file storage, and permissive messaging.

IMHO that is only true if you want to be a Twitter clone or otherwise be in the same business as Twitter.

Re: The Great App.net Mistake

#70

Post by danielsiders »

neuroscr wrote: post #55
Camillo wrote: post #37

If people don't want their social network to be at the whims of a company, why not go all the way and adopt the Tent protocol? http://tent.io I mean, I can see why from a developer's point of view. Those $30k a month are enticing. But why would users care?

Users care because it's easier to pay $5/mo, than to set up and maintain your own infrastructure. Especially if you don't have any experience with servers (Think Grandma, Mom, Dad, non-techies etc).

Tent works like email-- some users run their own servers, but most sign up for a service that handles it for them (like https://tent.is)
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