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App.net funded with $500,000.

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Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#91

Post by ceejayoz »

natrius wrote: post #89
ceejayoz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it? Where's the evidence that suggests millions of people have to join?

Isn't that self-evident? People post to Facebook and Twitter to be heard. Currently, they seem to post on App.net about App.net. That's not sustainable. Personally, I use Twitter mostly to talk to people in the fields I work in, namely hacking and journalism. I don't see how either of those communities will move to App.net wholesale. If you want me to pay money just to have a conversation with you, I'm probably going…

> Isn't that self-evident? People post to Facebook and Twitter to be heard. Currently, they seem to post on App.net about App.net. That's not sustainable.

My first post on Twitter was "trying to figure out WTF Twitter is". I subsequently didn't post for six months. I wouldn't judge the platform on what's posted in the first 30 days of existence. As for sustainability, $500k in revenue is more than Twitter had for years.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#92

Post by guscost »

graiz wrote: post #86
guscost wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is awesome, it even looks like the "funding bar" graphic breaks when it gets to 100%... Brilliant.

Not sure that's on purpose. The inner DIV is set to 106.08% width. Seems they are 106% funded.

I'm saying he probably didn't care that it would break in that case.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#93

Post by natrius »

stock_toaster wrote: post #85
icebraining wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly app.net is tapping into something that people are starting to feel pretty strongly about--the benefits of "free" aren't necessarily worth the consequences in the longterm. Well, maybe. Let's remember that Twitter has more than a hundred million accounts, while App.net has ~7500; we have no evidence that the people feeling that are not just a small number of outliers, much like there always will be.

> Well, maybe. Let's remember that Twitter has more than a hundred million accounts, while App.net has ~7500; we have no evidence that the people feeling that are not just a small number of outliers, much like there always will be. Does it matter if they don't get hundreds of millions of accounts, as long as the business is sustainable and users enjoy the service?

Users are unlikely to enjoy the service if their messages don't have an audience. After a year is up I bet people will tire of having to use both Twitter and App.net, and stop paying for the latter. How many App.net users have stopped using Twitter? That's an important metric to pay attention to over the next year. I predict it will be near zero, and most people aren't willing to pay in money and inconvenience for an ad-free product. Especially when they could just install a couple of extensions and get the same result with products that actually have an audience.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#94

Post by mindcrime »

loceng wrote: post #52
unimpressive wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What really needs to happen is an open decentralized protocol needs to be agreed upon for newsfeeds + blog posts (wordpress) + microblog (twitter). Then everyone can write their own servers and clients and operate in a manner like Email currently works. Then do it. Make everyone look like idiots for not doing it sooner. Make it so cool I have to sign up.

I'm guessing people are working on it. It's not an easy problem to solve though.

I'm guessing people are working on it.

They are:

http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/federatedsocialweb/

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#95

Post by icebraining »

stock_toaster wrote: post #85
icebraining wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly app.net is tapping into something that people are starting to feel pretty strongly about--the benefits of "free" aren't necessarily worth the consequences in the longterm. Well, maybe. Let's remember that Twitter has more than a hundred million accounts, while App.net has ~7500; we have no evidence that the people feeling that are not just a small number of outliers, much like there always will be.

> Well, maybe. Let's remember that Twitter has more than a hundred million accounts, while App.net has ~7500; we have no evidence that the people feeling that are not just a small number of outliers, much like there always will be. Does it matter if they don't get hundreds of millions of accounts, as long as the business is sustainable and users enjoy the service?

I don't know, and I don't particularly care. I was just replying to dave_sullivan's assertion, not making some broader point about App.net.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#96

Post by dannyr »

simondlr wrote: post #78
qqqqqq wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The biggest reason why non-developers would join is because of no ads. IMO, the people who care about ads on social networking have Adblock+ installed. I would even go so far as to throw this (very probably unsourcable statement) and say that most users don't care about ads, period. The one thing that pulls me to social networking is people, not the ads. A social network isn't social or a network if there aren't peo…

You didn't read the next sentence. It is not inherently ads that are the problem, it is the fact from a company's perspective you have to cater to a) the advertisers who are paying you money vs b) your users who aren't. Currently, I'm okay in paying $50 to get access to a great community of early adopters (lets admit, it is mostly tech people). I'm not naive to expect it won't change, but once killer apps start poppi…

To expand on simondlr's point, Twitter will optimize the site for maximum exposure of ads, not user's status updates.

The highest paying ads will surface to the top over the highest quality status updates.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#97

Post by mcantelon »

zcam wrote: post #84
mcantelon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there's Diaspora and Identica where you're neither product nor customer...

Or you could just install AdBlock. The argument about privacy doesn't really makes sense either, it is still a private company/product.

True. One advantage of a paid social network I haven't heard mentioned is the fact spam likely won't exist as it does on Twitter.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#98

Post by mdonahoe »

natrius wrote: post #79
chimi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more fundamentally about this: Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)? A lot of people don't want to be the product and believe when a company focuses on them as a customer rather than them as eyeballs to be sold to advertisers, who are the customer, then a better service is the outcome for the users of the service. With app.net the user is the customer. With Facebook and Twi…

"Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)?" Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it?

I can't reply directly so I will reply here "People post to Facebook and Twitter to be heard."

I use facebook and twitter to be heard by my friends. I don't need a massive audience to get utility from the service. Brands and celebrities are the ones that want to be heard by tons of people. Twitter and Facebook are just a different type of ad platforms for them.

If my friends are on app.net, I will use it. Most people I know wouldn't pay for it though. Perhaps app.net would be good to allow power users to sponsor their friends.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#99

Post by unimpressive »

natrius wrote: post #77
achompas wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of this service is. ... I myself wouldn't pay to use Facebook minus the ads. You answered your own question above, and also identified why app.net won't interest you. If you're okay with ads, then I think you'd get zero utility from app.net

This sort of service depends on network effects. I suspect that 90+% of Twitter and Facebook users aren't willing to pay $50 to get rid of ads. If even Google is having trouble getting traction with a social networking product, I don't see why anyone is confident that a social network users have to pay for will end up with a large enough user base to be useful.

> I suspect that 90+% of Twitter and Facebook users aren't willing to pay $50 to get rid of ads.

Yes. But I have no interest in talking to +90% of the people on Twitter and Facebook. The success of app.net won't depend on how many total users sign up over the services lifetime. It will depend more on how interesting the people who ultimately sign up are. A lot of it is perception, right now twitter is something of a worldwide telegraph broadcast service, you say something in 140 characters to as many people as humanly possible. You're trying to garner as many likes and followers as you can.

App.net can't compete as a broadcast service, they don't; and never will have the userbase to do so. I feel like they'll have to differentiate themselves in some other way to be successful.

If the conversations end up anything near as inane as twitter it's doomed.

Re: App.net funded with $500,000.

#100

Post by natrius »

dannyr wrote: post #90
natrius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do you want to be the product (facebook, twitter) or the customer (app.net)?" Where's the evidence that suggests that millions of people care about this distinction enough to pay for it?

Recent decisions made by Twitter are all about optimizing the site for advertising revenues. I don't think Twitter has any other choice because they chose the free path from the start. I highly doubt Twitter would suddenly switch to a premium/freemium model. While Twitter has empowered revolutions, I think the quality of the community has degraded though. I believe that if people pay for being part of a community, pe…

On Twitter, you make your own community, right? Most people who have your problem would unfollow people instead of paying $50/year to have conversations with a small portion of their Twitter audience.
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