18 ms·

App.net is crowdfunding their realtime feed platform

161 points by jamesjyu 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago
I worry that this is one of those market sectors where the price customers are willing to pay to use a service is dwarfed by the price advertisers are willing to pay for access to the users --- and so the ad-supported version is (a) free, (b) more attractive to users, and (c) more lucrative. In a network-effect dominated business, this doesn't seem like a recipe for success.
- gojomo 14y ago
  True, and yet what if there's an opening for the other model? And what if the opening grows as the market matures? It's worth a fresh try, every few years. Ad-supported mass-market audiovisual entertainment dominated for decades... but there's still a growing niche for audience-paid ad-unencumbered alternatives: Pandora, satellite radio, ITunes, NetFlix.
- ljd 14y ago
  One solution to the problem of "your users are the product" is allowing your users to buy their own ad space at a multiple of how much they are predicted to make you. If a user makes you $1/mo in ads then you could charge that user a multiple based on the growth rate of that income. So if they are pretty steadily using your app and clicking on ads just use a 1.5x multiplier which would be $18/yr. If their usage is growing and they are clicking on more ads then use a larger multiple, like 10x and charge them $10/mo. Once you consider these users who "buy their own ad space" as advertisers, in a way you'll start converging on making a better product for people that pay. Of course, the issues with this system is that it doesn't scale. The more users that become paying users the less data you have to predict how much you would be making on ads per user. Eventually, you would have to start guessing at that price. This downside could be averted if someone created an API that allowed companies like twitter or facebook to POST information about a user and the API would broker how much that user is worth either by algorithm or auction and the user would be given a chance to beat the top price. Just a thought.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- paulsutter 14y ago
  I'm not so sure. The network effect here is to have all apps sharing one messaging fabric. The value of access to that fabric should go up as the network grows, and the costs of moving a message should stay low. Things fall apart if one or two apps start to dominate the fabric, but if that's true the open fabric wasn't needed in the first place. I'm not predicting success here, I'm not even sure what the exact product is beyond a general idea of a twitter-gone-the-API route. I'm in favor of the project. We'll all learn from it and I admire his moxie in trying it. I'm getting out my credit now to give it a $ upvote.
- eridius 14y ago
  I can see (a) and (c), but what part of this scenario leads to (b)? The fundamental assertion underlying the desire for a paid network is that ad-supported networks are inherently worse for users because the network is built with advertisers in mind instead of users in mind. A paid network may very well bring in less money than an ad-supported network, but as long as it brings in enough money to operate I don't see the problem.
  - nl 14y ago
    I can see (a) and (c), but what part of this scenario leads to (b)? (a) [Free] makes it easy for people to join initially. More people makes it more attractive to other people (via network effects). Getting around that is going to be a problem.
gordonbowman 14y ago
What will happen to the current App.net product suite for app developers? Will you continue innovating on those tools?
- stanislavb 14y ago
  Yes, I'm also interested what would happen with the current App.net product. It was a good rival of http://www.apptlantis.com http://www.apptlantis.com
dalton 14y ago
Hi, Dalton here. Please let me know if you have any questions for me about this. I wrote a blogpost about my thinking behind this here: http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal
- petedoyle 14y ago
  I agree, I watched the video and read the FAQ and I'm still not 100% sure what you're building. Edit: I hadn't read your original post at http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been. I just read it and now it makes sense. I have a feeling your video will reach a much wider audience, so others might feel lost as well.
- dsl 14y ago
  Your page copy and the first few minutes of your video that I could sit through just tell me you are nerd raging over advertising on the internet. I get that you want to do something differently, but WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BUILDING? What am I becoming a "member" of? What am I funding? App.net appears to be a way to get more installs of mobile apps. What the hell?
  - dalton 14y ago
    There is a FAQ entry that attempts to address the question "OK, great, but what exactly is this product you will be delivering?" Are you unsatisfied with our answer in the FAQ? UPDATE I appreciate and agree with the feedback that we could explained things earlier and more clearly. Updates to our page coming soon.
    - rrbrambley 14y ago
      Hey Dalton & crew – congrats on this launch. I think that technologically, it's mostly clear what you want to build, but the thing that might be confusing is just that it is only described as "a real-time feed and API." Although you mention it's "Twitter-like," there still feels like there's some ambiguity in what type of content this feed is used for, especially since it's a paid service with the name App.net. For example, I don't know if I'm signing up to have a new social service, or a service that I'll mostly utilize in conjunction with app development, etc.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
bradgessler 14y ago
I find it amusing that people are rediscovering the age-old concept of running business that directly charges a customer for a product or service that nets a profit. This post strikes me as a "gee whiz" rediscovery of that fact through the conflation of: 1. Web 2.0 companies that "won" were really media companies. To win you need lots of eye balls. 2. A person can charge more for a product than it costs and get profit, which can be reinvested back into the product. 3. Instead of waiting for "profit" in said point above (which is risk to you and your company), you can instead reallocate that risk on future customers (and gauge interest at the same time). That said, I do admire Dalton's efforts.
- dalton 14y ago
  I believe that the people running Web2.0 companies publicly and privately refuse to admit they are running media companies. ie "Twitter CEO Dick Costolo: We’re Not a Media Company" (source: http://allthingsd.com/20120130/live-at-dive-twitters-dick-costolo-says-twitters-future-is-you/ http://allthingsd.com/20120130/live-at-dive-twitters-dick-co... )
  - vm 14y ago
    Your quote is unfairly taken out of context. Here is the full quote: Costolo: We’re not a media company. We’re in the media business. We distribute traffic. We’re one of the largest drivers of traffic to all sorts of other media property. Dick Costolo seems to understand that driving traffic - perhaps from ads - is where Twitter makes money
    - dalton 14y ago
      What's wrong with just saying "We are a media company" if you are a media company. The definition of a media company is fairly well understood, right? Why insist that you occupy some slightly semantically different space?
      - vm 14y ago
        Context man! He was speaking at a media conference filled with traditional media co's, such as The New Yorker, Viacom, and ESPN. It was even run by WSJ. To that audience, his statement highlights the nuance of traffic referral vs. accumulating page views, which is why Twitter is potentially poised for greater monetization than a "traditional" media company. It feels unfair to pull that quote out of context. The point you are making is very different than the point that Costolo was making when he said it.
badclient 14y ago
Next time, please look at at the camera :) I want to watch your video but I feel like you are talking to someone else, not me.
gojomo 14y ago
My left-brain says it's doomed. My right-brain says it's brilliant, and alpha geeks will lead the way in a mass secession from today's feudally-managed parasitic platforms. So entirely separate from any quibbling about the likelihood of success, I'm backing this project at the developer level ($100).
omarchowdhury 14y ago
What?
inmygarage 14y ago
Hypothetically let's say you reach the $500K goal. That is enough for a small team to survive for 12-18 months. Ongoing, will I have to pay $50 per year to use this service at the member level? The reason I am happy to pay Github $25/month is because I want access to all my old projects. What is your thesis around whether people really want access to their old "feed" data (is that a proper way to describe it)?
- dalton 14y ago
  My belief is that this sort of service will enable new/interesting applications and real value that could have been unlocked if Twitter took a different direction: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been
smalter 14y ago
If this fails, I think it will be because the video is of one dude talking the whole time without any media at all on what the actual product will be. That said, I hope it succeeds and I'll be contributing some of my hard-earned cash.
- btown 14y ago
  Some music and visuals would go a long way towards selling the product. I think we've all been spoiled by Kickstarter, but it's 2012, and we've come to expect incredible experiences when we watch videos of people asking us for money: just having an HD camera doesn't do it anymore. As it is, I watched the first minute, and I still had no idea what benefit this would provide me as a developer or a user (only that Dalton clearly doesn't like Facebook), so I went back to my own coding.
arpit 14y ago
A lot of my other opinions have already been brought up so I won't restate them, but I further don't understand why you didn't use KickStarter? I dont know enough about your funding system to trust it with my money or info. KS has built a reputation and I trust I won't be charged in case the project goes under (not to mention you miss out on any network effects).
- jlongster 14y ago
  From the page: "Why aren't you using Kickstarter? We wish we could, we <3 Kickstarter. Unfortunately, the Kickstarter Terms Of Service explicitly prohibits raising money for this kind of service. "
  - mmahemoff 14y ago
    I can't see exactly where this project would be prohibited. http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines
    - runako 14y ago
      Item 1 says in part: >> A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project. He's starting a business.
    - dalton 14y ago
      "Projects, projects, projects. As in all categories, Kickstarter is for projects that can be completed, not things that require maintenance to exist. This means no e-commerce sites, web businesses, or social networking sites. (Yes, this means Kickstarter wouldn’t be allowed on Kickstarter. Funny, but true.)"
      - slashclee 14y ago
        How is Penny-Arcade's Kickstarter allowed then? (Not disagreeing, but it seems like they would run afoul of this if it were actually enforced.)
brackishlake 14y ago
So, as investors and backers and owners, do we get a breakdown of what the hell you're doing with a HALF MILLION dollars? Thanks!
bc1323 14y ago
So developer tools for social media feeds - isnt this what Singly already does? http://singly.com/ http://singly.com/
gergles 14y ago
Wait, so the idea is that you're going to charge for Twitter, without the network that makes Twitter worth anything at all? As far as I can tell from the video and FAQ, that's what it is. A twitter clone that costs $50 a year. If this is NOT what it is, you simply have to do a better job illustrating what this platform is supposed to deliver.
Maascamp 14y ago
Aside from the "what exactly is this?" reaction, I just can't seem to get over the fact that I'm being asked to pay someone to build a service I will then have to pay for. This just seems absurd to me. Either build it and I'll pay to use it or I pay you to build it and I use it for free. Can't have it both ways.
- lukifer 14y ago
  It's worded awkwardly, but I believe that a $50 donation is a prepayment for one year of service, so you're not being asked to pay twice.
  - ebabchick 14y ago
    Anyone serious about using this for it's intended use case (from what I can tell) would not be in this for only one year.
dinkumthinkum 14y ago
I think I am just being naive but I would like to see this succeed.
propercoil 14y ago
You need to change the video so it would be clear: WHAT IS THE PRODUCT
- duncan 14y ago
  I agree. I have no idea what he is talking about.
ebabchick 14y ago
Is this a developer-centric parody of http://www.vooza.com http://www.vooza.com?
lukeholder 14y ago
It is like he is avoid saying this is going to be a twitter clone but keeps advertisers out by charging a small fee for access. If he could reproduce the twitter API so it would be easy to switch any current twitter client, I say go for it.
SudarshanP 14y ago
How will this project avoid the fate of diaspora?
- zizee 14y ago
  Genuine question: what fate is that?
salman89 14y ago
Not sure if this is supposed to be a paid Twitter, or if it is a paid platform for developers who need a real time feed infrastructure. If it is the latter, who owns the data? If it is the paying developer, be assured that they will sometimes offset that cost with ads.
rudiger 14y ago
Will there be a free tier?

161 points by jamesjyu 14y ago

I worry that this is one of those market sectors where the price customers are willing to pay to use a service is dwarfed by the price advertisers are willing to pay for access to the users --- and so the ad-supported version is (a) free, (b) more attractive to users, and (c) more lucrative. In a network-effect dominated business, this doesn't seem like a recipe for success.

gojomo 14y ago
True, and yet what if there's an opening for the other model? And what if the opening grows as the market matures? It's worth a fresh try, every few years. Ad-supported mass-market audiovisual entertainment dominated for decades... but there's still a growing niche for audience-paid ad-unencumbered alternatives: Pandora, satellite radio, ITunes, NetFlix.
ljd 14y ago
One solution to the problem of "your users are the product" is allowing your users to buy their own ad space at a multiple of how much they are predicted to make you. If a user makes you $1/mo in ads then you could charge that user a multiple based on the growth rate of that income. So if they are pretty steadily using your app and clicking on ads just use a 1.5x multiplier which would be $18/yr. If their usage is growing and they are clicking on more ads then use a larger multiple, like 10x and charge them $10/mo. Once you consider these users who "buy their own ad space" as advertisers, in a way you'll start converging on making a better product for people that pay. Of course, the issues with this system is that it doesn't scale. The more users that become paying users the less data you have to predict how much you would be making on ads per user. Eventually, you would have to start guessing at that price. This downside could be averted if someone created an API that allowed companies like twitter or facebook to POST information about a user and the API would broker how much that user is worth either by algorithm or auction and the user would be given a chance to beat the top price. Just a thought.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
paulsutter 14y ago
I'm not so sure. The network effect here is to have all apps sharing one messaging fabric. The value of access to that fabric should go up as the network grows, and the costs of moving a message should stay low. Things fall apart if one or two apps start to dominate the fabric, but if that's true the open fabric wasn't needed in the first place. I'm not predicting success here, I'm not even sure what the exact product is beyond a general idea of a twitter-gone-the-API route. I'm in favor of the project. We'll all learn from it and I admire his moxie in trying it. I'm getting out my credit now to give it a $ upvote.
eridius 14y ago
I can see (a) and (c), but what part of this scenario leads to (b)? The fundamental assertion underlying the desire for a paid network is that ad-supported networks are inherently worse for users because the network is built with advertisers in mind instead of users in mind. A paid network may very well bring in less money than an ad-supported network, but as long as it brings in enough money to operate I don't see the problem.
- nl 14y ago
  I can see (a) and (c), but what part of this scenario leads to (b)? (a) [Free] makes it easy for people to join initially. More people makes it more attractive to other people (via network effects). Getting around that is going to be a problem.

gordonbowman 14y ago

What will happen to the current App.net product suite for app developers? Will you continue innovating on those tools?

stanislavb 14y ago
Yes, I'm also interested what would happen with the current App.net product. It was a good rival of http://www.apptlantis.com http://www.apptlantis.com

dalton 14y ago

Hi, Dalton here. Please let me know if you have any questions for me about this. I wrote a blogpost about my thinking behind this here: http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal

petedoyle 14y ago
I agree, I watched the video and read the FAQ and I'm still not 100% sure what you're building. Edit: I hadn't read your original post at http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been. I just read it and now it makes sense. I have a feeling your video will reach a much wider audience, so others might feel lost as well.
dsl 14y ago
Your page copy and the first few minutes of your video that I could sit through just tell me you are nerd raging over advertising on the internet. I get that you want to do something differently, but WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BUILDING? What am I becoming a "member" of? What am I funding? App.net appears to be a way to get more installs of mobile apps. What the hell?
- dalton 14y ago
  There is a FAQ entry that attempts to address the question "OK, great, but what exactly is this product you will be delivering?" Are you unsatisfied with our answer in the FAQ? UPDATE I appreciate and agree with the feedback that we could explained things earlier and more clearly. Updates to our page coming soon.
  - rrbrambley 14y ago
    Hey Dalton & crew – congrats on this launch. I think that technologically, it's mostly clear what you want to build, but the thing that might be confusing is just that it is only described as "a real-time feed and API." Although you mention it's "Twitter-like," there still feels like there's some ambiguity in what type of content this feed is used for, especially since it's a paid service with the name App.net. For example, I don't know if I'm signing up to have a new social service, or a service that I'll mostly utilize in conjunction with app development, etc.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

bradgessler 14y ago

I find it amusing that people are rediscovering the age-old concept of running business that directly charges a customer for a product or service that nets a profit. This post strikes me as a "gee whiz" rediscovery of that fact through the conflation of: 1. Web 2.0 companies that "won" were really media companies. To win you need lots of eye balls. 2. A person can charge more for a product than it costs and get profit, which can be reinvested back into the product. 3. Instead of waiting for "profit" in said point above (which is risk to you and your company), you can instead reallocate that risk on future customers (and gauge interest at the same time). That said, I do admire Dalton's efforts.

dalton 14y ago
I believe that the people running Web2.0 companies publicly and privately refuse to admit they are running media companies. ie "Twitter CEO Dick Costolo: We’re Not a Media Company" (source: http://allthingsd.com/20120130/live-at-dive-twitters-dick-costolo-says-twitters-future-is-you/ http://allthingsd.com/20120130/live-at-dive-twitters-dick-co... )
- vm 14y ago
  Your quote is unfairly taken out of context. Here is the full quote: Costolo: We’re not a media company. We’re in the media business. We distribute traffic. We’re one of the largest drivers of traffic to all sorts of other media property. Dick Costolo seems to understand that driving traffic - perhaps from ads - is where Twitter makes money
  - dalton 14y ago
    What's wrong with just saying "We are a media company" if you are a media company. The definition of a media company is fairly well understood, right? Why insist that you occupy some slightly semantically different space?
    - vm 14y ago
      Context man! He was speaking at a media conference filled with traditional media co's, such as The New Yorker, Viacom, and ESPN. It was even run by WSJ. To that audience, his statement highlights the nuance of traffic referral vs. accumulating page views, which is why Twitter is potentially poised for greater monetization than a "traditional" media company. It feels unfair to pull that quote out of context. The point you are making is very different than the point that Costolo was making when he said it.

badclient 14y ago

Next time, please look at at the camera :) I want to watch your video but I feel like you are talking to someone else, not me.

gojomo 14y ago

My left-brain says it's doomed. My right-brain says it's brilliant, and alpha geeks will lead the way in a mass secession from today's feudally-managed parasitic platforms. So entirely separate from any quibbling about the likelihood of success, I'm backing this project at the developer level ($100).

omarchowdhury 14y ago

What?

inmygarage 14y ago

Hypothetically let's say you reach the $500K goal. That is enough for a small team to survive for 12-18 months. Ongoing, will I have to pay $50 per year to use this service at the member level? The reason I am happy to pay Github $25/month is because I want access to all my old projects. What is your thesis around whether people really want access to their old "feed" data (is that a proper way to describe it)?

dalton 14y ago
My belief is that this sort of service will enable new/interesting applications and real value that could have been unlocked if Twitter took a different direction: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been

smalter 14y ago

If this fails, I think it will be because the video is of one dude talking the whole time without any media at all on what the actual product will be. That said, I hope it succeeds and I'll be contributing some of my hard-earned cash.

btown 14y ago
Some music and visuals would go a long way towards selling the product. I think we've all been spoiled by Kickstarter, but it's 2012, and we've come to expect incredible experiences when we watch videos of people asking us for money: just having an HD camera doesn't do it anymore. As it is, I watched the first minute, and I still had no idea what benefit this would provide me as a developer or a user (only that Dalton clearly doesn't like Facebook), so I went back to my own coding.

arpit 14y ago

A lot of my other opinions have already been brought up so I won't restate them, but I further don't understand why you didn't use KickStarter? I dont know enough about your funding system to trust it with my money or info. KS has built a reputation and I trust I won't be charged in case the project goes under (not to mention you miss out on any network effects).

jlongster 14y ago
From the page: "Why aren't you using Kickstarter? We wish we could, we <3 Kickstarter. Unfortunately, the Kickstarter Terms Of Service explicitly prohibits raising money for this kind of service. "
- mmahemoff 14y ago
  I can't see exactly where this project would be prohibited. http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines
  - runako 14y ago
    Item 1 says in part: >> A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project. He's starting a business.
  - dalton 14y ago
    "Projects, projects, projects. As in all categories, Kickstarter is for projects that can be completed, not things that require maintenance to exist. This means no e-commerce sites, web businesses, or social networking sites. (Yes, this means Kickstarter wouldn’t be allowed on Kickstarter. Funny, but true.)"
    - slashclee 14y ago
      How is Penny-Arcade's Kickstarter allowed then? (Not disagreeing, but it seems like they would run afoul of this if it were actually enforced.)

brackishlake 14y ago

So, as investors and backers and owners, do we get a breakdown of what the hell you're doing with a HALF MILLION dollars? Thanks!

bc1323 14y ago

So developer tools for social media feeds - isnt this what Singly already does? http://singly.com/ http://singly.com/

gergles 14y ago

Wait, so the idea is that you're going to charge for Twitter, without the network that makes Twitter worth anything at all? As far as I can tell from the video and FAQ, that's what it is. A twitter clone that costs $50 a year. If this is NOT what it is, you simply have to do a better job illustrating what this platform is supposed to deliver.

Maascamp 14y ago

Aside from the "what exactly is this?" reaction, I just can't seem to get over the fact that I'm being asked to pay someone to build a service I will then have to pay for. This just seems absurd to me. Either build it and I'll pay to use it or I pay you to build it and I use it for free. Can't have it both ways.

lukifer 14y ago
It's worded awkwardly, but I believe that a $50 donation is a prepayment for one year of service, so you're not being asked to pay twice.
- ebabchick 14y ago
  Anyone serious about using this for it's intended use case (from what I can tell) would not be in this for only one year.

dinkumthinkum 14y ago

I think I am just being naive but I would like to see this succeed.

propercoil 14y ago

You need to change the video so it would be clear: WHAT IS THE PRODUCT

duncan 14y ago
I agree. I have no idea what he is talking about.

ebabchick 14y ago

Is this a developer-centric parody of http://www.vooza.com http://www.vooza.com?

lukeholder 14y ago

It is like he is avoid saying this is going to be a twitter clone but keeps advertisers out by charging a small fee for access. If he could reproduce the twitter API so it would be easy to switch any current twitter client, I say go for it.

SudarshanP 14y ago

How will this project avoid the fate of diaspora?

zizee 14y ago
Genuine question: what fate is that?

salman89 14y ago

Not sure if this is supposed to be a paid Twitter, or if it is a paid platform for developers who need a real time feed infrastructure. If it is the latter, who owns the data? If it is the paying developer, be assured that they will sometimes offset that cost with ads.

rudiger 14y ago

Will there be a free tier?