What's the real-world problem App.net solves? I'm not being cynical, just curious. If I back the project, I want to know the pain point I'm solving and if it's a pain point that actually is worth solving versus something else. The other question I have is, who's the market? People are using the HN vs. Reddit comparison, but HN is about as niche as it gets and also doesn't really do much other than provide a place for us to share some data. Muggles don't usually visit HN and I'm wondering if they'd have a need for App.net.
I'm considering backing it, but like all investments, there's some due diligence involved. There's also the opportunity cost for the money that should be considered. I'm also wondering why kickstarter is appropriate as opposed to traditional VC and seed funds. If there's a sustainable business there, it would seem like the App.net team would have a very easy time raising money -- they seem competent, capable and passionate (at least enough to warrant a small seed round.)
If by "sticking it to the man" you mean "creating a business model based on an open api and not the content in the platform the API uses," then I agree.
The problem with Twitter and Facebook is that they've moved away from supporting external developers into media companies (so the argument goes).
If that's true, then Twitter and Facebook are looking for the best interests of it's advertising partners like every media company (radio, television, print, etc.) rather than the consumers.
In the case of Facebook and Twitter, it means rolling out features that benefit the advertisers. Now, it is certainly possible that the features rolled out could benefit both sides, but the moment Twitter/Facebook has to make a decision between the two they'll pick the advertisers since that's how they butter their bread.
App.net, by contrast, only has one option which is make the best choices for the developers/users. In some sense, this is really more of a B-to-B venture than a B-to-C since, ideally, App.net focuses on the API and let's the developers build the robust applications.
If you took Facebook and Twitter making a few people mad lately out of the equation, this is a mediocre idea at best. I think its feeding off of people's temporary anger at the situation. I think it will pass.
The economics behind the app.net idea are way beyond mediocre. Charging users for a platform capable of hosting a wide range of apps and compensating developers with revenue share based on usage aligns everyone's interests with the users. The platform provides the best infrastructure and the app developers are incentivised to create lasting value for users, since they keep getting paid for as long as people keep using their apps.
Besides, if it's such a mediocre idea why are some of the smartest folks in tech backing it already? Check out the gallery of community members on the signup page.
Some of the smartest people in tech have supported a ton of failures. Every VC on the planet has a long list of "the next big thing" that never went anywhere. I don't necessarily care if some of the "smartest" people in tech are backing it. App.net has raised under $300,000 -- if it was THAT awesome, they would have raised the full $500K almost instantly. Fred Wilson would have just just wrote a check for the whole thing. They might like the idea, but if there was a viable business model there would have been a frenzy if the proposed product was that awesome. I still can't understand how this is supposed to make money. And giving someone a $50 or $100 or $1000 pledge on Kickstarter is pocket change for tech luminaries. They're likely supporting the founders more than a specific implementation. I don't know many people actually salivating over this or else they wouldn't be needing Kickstarter.
More power to the founders, I'm just skeptical because it still isn't clear what this project is supposed to accomplish. It's almost like Occupy got involved in a software project to vent anger over the big companies acting in ways with which they disagree.
Still, good luck to the App.net team. I hope they succeed and I'm proven to be an ignorant Luddite!
Sure there's an anger component, but that's a low blow to call it Occupy. First of all, it's not an aimless protest at a "big company", it's anger about the fact that Twitter became a big company on the backs of these developers, but when it comes to monetize, turning into an ad company and shutting any threat to the ad revenue stream down is always the safe bet.
More importantly, it's not just a bunch of ideologues camped out on a lawn smoking weed. Dalton is making an assertion that the only way to make the service that the Twitter developers of 2006, 2007, 2008 signed up for, is to enshrine it in founding principles. This is because inevitably advertisers always outbid users.
Because of this, of course VCs aren't going to pony up the $500k. There's not that much upside for a VC. But that doesn't mean the service doesn't have value, it just means that value can't be captured the same way a billion-user free service can. However, the promise of stability means that for developers it is much less risky to build against, and they can create much more value. Some of that value maybe captured, some of it not, but just because no one is making a buck doesn't mean there isn't a tremendous amount of value being created.
Finally, the Kickstarter thing is critical to this project because it validates the idea itself. If a VC writes a check that proves nothing, but if 10,000 users promise $50 that is a critical mass right there. It's sort of like how public radio members drive the big contributions. No one is going to pay $50 for an empty social network, but if there are 10,000 quality people there you know there will be at least something interesting on day one.
>> it's anger about the fact that Twitter became a big company on the backs of these developers,
No, I disagree on this. This is not true. Remember, the developers wouldn't even care about developing for this platform if it wasn't big in the first place. Developers didn't make it big. Twitter became big, and developers came flocking in.
It would be mediocre if it was simply an "open api" twitter/facebook but, given the chatter on the Alpha site and the look of the API on git (https://github.com/appdotnet/api-spec), I think there is something bigger going on here.
Its a cool api, and I mean no disrespect to anybody involved like the guy said above, I just believe the business as a whole is a kneejerk reaction to a couple of well connected people and sites getting the rug pulled out from under them. It would be cool if they could get enough people to use it, but the API is only useful if there is useful data to pull from it.
It's not exactly a knee-jerk reaction to an isolated incident though. Twitter has been moving in the media company direction for a while now, and with the latest communications you can almost see the "fuck you developers" oozing out from between every line of shmarmy corporate-speak.
Any developer would be a fool now to build a product whose core relies on Twitter's API. And yet the core functionality of Twitter is an incredibly useful base to build on.
With App.net you don't have the volume of Twitter, but on the other hand you will presumably have a much higher signal to noise ratio. It won't be inundated with marketing spam, bot follows, and banal teen banter. And in any case, Twitter was small once too, and people found a use for it. I think a critical mass of 10,000 is definitely enough to enable some interesting apps.
So what's the business model? Are there enough developers willing to pay real money for access to an API? It seems hard enough to get developers to actually buy a license for Sublime or TextMate (or even pay $0.99 for a song on iTunes.)
I could see some potential in the enterprise space to license out the API for companies to then build their own information services atop of.. but that seems to get away from the "power to the people" idea this project seems to be capitalizing on.
>App.net focuses on the API and let's the developers build the robust applications.
Robust applications that do what? I'm not sure what the value of the API is, isn't the point of a Twitter-like API to allow people to use Twitter data. The API side of the equation isn't that hard to do.. it's the content accessed with the API that would be useful. I can see and appreciate the tech in this project, but I'm not sure why a developer would build an application to consume an API without much data..
I'm confused. I don't mean any disrespect to the folks involved or their supporters, but I'm not sure what this project will accomplish -- is it a technology platform or a content platform? And is the technology that "hard" -- it seems to me that getting the content would be the hard part.
I don't understand the confusion folks have about the business model (earnest confusion, not "yur dumb" trolling confusion).
App.net creates an API and people pay money to have access. Different tiers demand different prices. $500,000 in membership fees makes it sustainable (says Dalton).
The big question and, quite frankly, the whole point of Dalton's experiment (as I read him anyway, I don't know the fellow personally), is to test if there is actually a market for it, hence the kickstarter like campaign.
There are paid version of all sorts of web services that are offered for free that are sustainable. I pay for a server space and a domain names yearly. I don't know why something like this couldn't also exist for those who wanted more control.
Will Dalton's work? Time will tell, but something like this will happen and will happen soon.
Some / many people would not consider an app that cost more than 99cents expensive, and having a barrier to exclude those that do isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I'm considering backing it, but like all investments, there's some due diligence involved. There's also the opportunity cost for the money that should be considered. I'm also wondering why kickstarter is appropriate as opposed to traditional VC and seed funds. If there's a sustainable business there, it would seem like the App.net team would have a very easy time raising money -- they seem competent, capable and passionate (at least enough to warrant a small seed round.)