8 ms·

App.net, like I need another bug tracker

45 points by astrojams 14y ago

jagira 14y ago
Developers flock to platforms where users are. Twitter and FB has users. So devs write apps for FB and Twitter. App.net, from where I see, looks like a platform with more developers than users.
citricsquid 14y ago
> Once those two companies get their act together and improve their developer programs, the market will quickly loose interest in App.net. isn't the point that Twitter and Facebook's shitty developer relations are a symptom of their desire to monetise and therefore there is never going to be a time when they have good developer relations?
- MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
  Right, at one point, the developer interactions were the primary focus. Well, secondary, right behind growing the user base.
taterbase 14y ago
My problem with App.net is I just don't care. I don't need another social network. I don't need ads removed from my current social feed. I don't need app.net. If twitter died tomorrow something else would pop up. That's the nature of the space. We don't need it and so we go where there is less friction. Ease of use, ease of joining, and ease of finding those I care about most. That's all that matters. I see App.net becoming something much like svbtle. A highly curated space much like a country club where only those willing to pay the entry fee are allowed in. Cool. As long as the data is available publicly through feeds and other api's it won't matter too much. It's still blogging, it's still tweeting, but now your participants have been restricted. Not as much as Svbtle but enough to encourage a certain atmosphere.
- ninetax 14y ago
  I agree. Doesn't anyone who is bugged enough by ads just use Adblock?
  - kmfrk 14y ago
    The problem with Twitter is that monetization feel like the end instead of the means. Right now, the Twitter of yesterday feels more useful than today's, because Twitter wedge all sorts of banners and ads into everything. My problem with App.net is that the user payment is only a means to an end no one has explained yet. I welcome any competition to Twitter to make them step up their game, though, so from a spectator's view, I couldn't be happier to see App.net succeed. As a hypothetical user, the platform holds no appeal to me. I still remember Jaiku, Pownce and Identi.ca.
  - fredoliveira 14y ago
    I suspect that you don't understand that this is not about the ads being visible, but the ads being based on your data, and your content.
    - jmduke 14y ago
      I suspect that you don't understand that a lot of people still don't care. To be frank, I'd rather have ads be based on my data, because the ads are a lot better.
    - ninetax 14y ago
      OK, I understand a bit better now. I do like the idea that I am the customer, not the product and that my data is mine to do with what I please, not something I give away freely. I guess my only quibble about App.net is that I've never personally seen the appeal of the micro-blogging/twitter social model. I don't like to "follow" people, and I like to say things to other people in more than 140/256 charters. I believe that there is a generally correlation between the length of people's comments/text and their quality. I would like to see a more integrated real time feed, i.e the music people listen to, the movies they watch, where they eat so that developers can use it to make recommendations to me. That would be awesome as long as I can have fine grained control over who get access to what information. I am excited to see if App.net is going to go in this direction.
wilfra 14y ago
Something about using a svbtle clone and ripping app.net on it doesn't sit well with me.
- astrojams 14y ago
  Its WP-SVBTLE theme for wordpress: http://wp-svbtle.bootstrapthem.es/ http://wp-svbtle.bootstrapthem.es/
  - astrojams 14y ago
    Also, isn't everything derived from something? Case in point: http://drawar.com/ http://drawar.com/
    - tptacek 14y ago
      The point isn't that Curtis has a monopoly on thin black strokes and generous leading. The point is that it's not OK to set out with the goal of confusing readers as to whether a blog is or isn't a part of a blog network.
      - sprobertson 14y ago
        I don't think most people understand that Svbtle is a "blog network" rather than a particular blog engine or even just theme. For a long time I assumed it was just a neat alternative to Wordpress, not an exclusive group of pen pals.
        tptacek 14y ago
        Step 1: Type SVBTLE.COM into your browser address bar. Step 2: Close your eyes, hit ENTER, count to 10. Step 3: Open your eyes and count to 10 again. Step 4: Tell me how that argument still stands.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
gavanwoolery 14y ago
Yeah, I would love for something like App.net to succeed, but unfortunately it probably will not. Even if every developer supported it, its the consumers who always have the last word. Consumers outnumber developers by at least 500:1, and 99 percent of consumers do not care about the issues that developers face. If you don't get consumers (i.e. non-developers) on your platform, it will die (unless of course you are building B2B tools or something).
bdunn 14y ago
You can't compare something that requires a critical mass to be useful (app.net, Facebook, Twitter) with issue tracking software. B2B products, like bug trackers, can carve a niche and do rather well with just a few hundred or thousand paid customers. Yes, they're not going to all be Atlassian, but a solo founder charging 1,000 people $30 a month can live very comfortably. And you can drift along for a while and not ultimately give up because "the big guys" are 1000x your size. B2C products, like app.net, exist on an entirely different plane. Disclaimer: I run a fairly new project management tool / bug tracker that already has already replaced a considerable amount of my monthly income.
darkpicnic 14y ago
Regardless of your opinions on whether or not app.net is a worthwhile endeavor, I think Dalton is proving that the "pay for service" business model still does exist and can be applied to internet services. For so long, the norm was "build service people use for free, get a million users, figure out business model" which inevitably leads to a) selling user info or b) targeting people with ads. Constantly trashing app.net is not seeing the bigger picture. Thankfully, people like Dalton aren't as short-sighted.
tarr11 14y ago
Dalton has managed to convince 8000 developers to cough up cash. He's got a working alpha with a high level of community engagement. Those are substantial accomplishments. I wouldn't write it off just yet.
Irishsteve 14y ago
Twitter was crap when it started, something happened which caused it to be useful. App.net is crap, but maybe something useful will come out of it and then we'll find it useful. p.s I'm in the app.net alpha.
iamdann 14y ago
It's not always about the idea. It's the execution.
tptacek 14y ago
The Svbtle branding here is A Bad Idea. I got halfway down the page, to the part where he appears to have picked a bug tracker project at random to call "me-too" and compare to a "Pascal for Dummies" exercise (there's a Pascal book somewhere that mentions Twitter? there's a high school that still teaches Pascal?) --- and started asking how something like this had managed to make it to Svbtle. Then I realized, "oh, it's wp-svbtle, whatever the fuck that is". This is a design whose entire purpose is to mimic the Svbtle blog network and confuse readers. Every design choice in it, from the duplication of Curtis' (pointless) "Kudos" thingy to the stroke width of the rules, is made not for its own sake but to duplicate the branding of someone else's site. It's a jerk move all around, not just to Curtis, or to anyone else who has decided to write for Curtis' network, but to readers, who deserve to know at a glance who an author is, or in this case isn't, affiliated with or endorsed by. And because it's an irritatingly obvious jerk move, it does a disservice to the author as well, making their words a sideshow on their own site.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- dcurtis 14y ago
  Not only is it a pixel-for-pixel duplication of the design, but now they're copying my front-end code, too.
  - prezjordan 14y ago
    Code meaning front-end CSS+JS? Just out of curiosity, is it possible to protect that? Cease & desist? Great job with Svbtle, Dustin. Sorry to see a dupe like this, on WordPress nevertheless!
  - makmanalp 14y ago
    People copying things they like on the internet? Never! Seriously, what did you expect? You created something beautiful. You formed a visual brand that associated itself to good writing. You made it exclusive. People wanted in. They copied it. You can see examples of this from nature (animals imitating visual properties of other animals to make themselves more scary etc) to modern design strategy (using similar colors / fonts to create a subconscious mental association with something).
chrismonsanto 14y ago
There isn't really any useful content in that rant to comment about, so I'm going to go off topic a little bit: "If your senior high school computer science final project wasn’t building an issue tracker or Twitter clone, then your high school either a) didn’t offer computer science classes or b) you were a jock and didn’t take computer science." Is this really true? My brain immediately turned off when I read this, but then I realized I have no clue what people in high school usually program. I'll go first: around 14 or 15 I wrote a bytecode compiler for some god awful language that looked like the bastard child of Perl and Javascript... I guess around late high school time I was mainly working on Smogon, a competitive Pokemon website (still around and making money!) and NetBattle, an online simulator for several Pokemon generations (now defunct and replaced by www.pokemonshowdown.com) So HN, what was your "senior high school project"?
jmduke 14y ago
If your senior high school computer science final project wasn’t building an issue tracker or Twitter clone, then your high school either a) didn’t offer computer science classes or b) you were a jock and didn’t take computer science. I think this is the first time I've actually been filled with hatred towards a blog post.
cmelbye 14y ago
God... what? First off, which Pascal textbook would be both old enough to include a floppy disk, yet new enough to include a Twitter clone? I simply don't understand his main argument. App.net will be unsuccessful because it's just a clone of Twitter and people won't support a Twitter clone? App.net is certainly not and will not be a Twitter clone, and anyone who has spent more than five minutes looking at the platform, its roadmap, its API docs, etc., would know that.
pmarsh 14y ago
I would consider App.net successful if it pushes Facebook and Twitter to adopt some of what App.net is setting out to accomplish. Would it be great if App.net flourishes to the point of being a continued relevant tool and site for years? Of course. But its goals are worth keeping track of and working towards. No need to get so worked up about it against it.

45 points by astrojams 14y ago

Developers flock to platforms where users are. Twitter and FB has users. So devs write apps for FB and Twitter. App.net, from where I see, looks like a platform with more developers than users.

citricsquid 14y ago

> Once those two companies get their act together and improve their developer programs, the market will quickly loose interest in App.net. isn't the point that Twitter and Facebook's shitty developer relations are a symptom of their desire to monetise and therefore there is never going to be a time when they have good developer relations?

MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
Right, at one point, the developer interactions were the primary focus. Well, secondary, right behind growing the user base.

taterbase 14y ago

My problem with App.net is I just don't care. I don't need another social network. I don't need ads removed from my current social feed. I don't need app.net. If twitter died tomorrow something else would pop up. That's the nature of the space. We don't need it and so we go where there is less friction. Ease of use, ease of joining, and ease of finding those I care about most. That's all that matters. I see App.net becoming something much like svbtle. A highly curated space much like a country club where only those willing to pay the entry fee are allowed in. Cool. As long as the data is available publicly through feeds and other api's it won't matter too much. It's still blogging, it's still tweeting, but now your participants have been restricted. Not as much as Svbtle but enough to encourage a certain atmosphere.

ninetax 14y ago
I agree. Doesn't anyone who is bugged enough by ads just use Adblock?
- kmfrk 14y ago
  The problem with Twitter is that monetization feel like the end instead of the means. Right now, the Twitter of yesterday feels more useful than today's, because Twitter wedge all sorts of banners and ads into everything. My problem with App.net is that the user payment is only a means to an end no one has explained yet. I welcome any competition to Twitter to make them step up their game, though, so from a spectator's view, I couldn't be happier to see App.net succeed. As a hypothetical user, the platform holds no appeal to me. I still remember Jaiku, Pownce and Identi.ca.
- fredoliveira 14y ago
  I suspect that you don't understand that this is not about the ads being visible, but the ads being based on your data, and your content.
  - jmduke 14y ago
    I suspect that you don't understand that a lot of people still don't care. To be frank, I'd rather have ads be based on my data, because the ads are a lot better.
  - ninetax 14y ago
    OK, I understand a bit better now. I do like the idea that I am the customer, not the product and that my data is mine to do with what I please, not something I give away freely. I guess my only quibble about App.net is that I've never personally seen the appeal of the micro-blogging/twitter social model. I don't like to "follow" people, and I like to say things to other people in more than 140/256 charters. I believe that there is a generally correlation between the length of people's comments/text and their quality. I would like to see a more integrated real time feed, i.e the music people listen to, the movies they watch, where they eat so that developers can use it to make recommendations to me. That would be awesome as long as I can have fine grained control over who get access to what information. I am excited to see if App.net is going to go in this direction.

wilfra 14y ago

Something about using a svbtle clone and ripping app.net on it doesn't sit well with me.

astrojams 14y ago
Its WP-SVBTLE theme for wordpress: http://wp-svbtle.bootstrapthem.es/ http://wp-svbtle.bootstrapthem.es/
- astrojams 14y ago
  Also, isn't everything derived from something? Case in point: http://drawar.com/ http://drawar.com/
  - tptacek 14y ago
    The point isn't that Curtis has a monopoly on thin black strokes and generous leading. The point is that it's not OK to set out with the goal of confusing readers as to whether a blog is or isn't a part of a blog network.
    - sprobertson 14y ago
      I don't think most people understand that Svbtle is a "blog network" rather than a particular blog engine or even just theme. For a long time I assumed it was just a neat alternative to Wordpress, not an exclusive group of pen pals.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Step 1: Type SVBTLE.COM into your browser address bar. Step 2: Close your eyes, hit ENTER, count to 10. Step 3: Open your eyes and count to 10 again. Step 4: Tell me how that argument still stands.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]

gavanwoolery 14y ago

Yeah, I would love for something like App.net to succeed, but unfortunately it probably will not. Even if every developer supported it, its the consumers who always have the last word. Consumers outnumber developers by at least 500:1, and 99 percent of consumers do not care about the issues that developers face. If you don't get consumers (i.e. non-developers) on your platform, it will die (unless of course you are building B2B tools or something).

bdunn 14y ago

You can't compare something that requires a critical mass to be useful (app.net, Facebook, Twitter) with issue tracking software. B2B products, like bug trackers, can carve a niche and do rather well with just a few hundred or thousand paid customers. Yes, they're not going to all be Atlassian, but a solo founder charging 1,000 people $30 a month can live very comfortably. And you can drift along for a while and not ultimately give up because "the big guys" are 1000x your size. B2C products, like app.net, exist on an entirely different plane. Disclaimer: I run a fairly new project management tool / bug tracker that already has already replaced a considerable amount of my monthly income.

darkpicnic 14y ago

Regardless of your opinions on whether or not app.net is a worthwhile endeavor, I think Dalton is proving that the "pay for service" business model still does exist and can be applied to internet services. For so long, the norm was "build service people use for free, get a million users, figure out business model" which inevitably leads to a) selling user info or b) targeting people with ads. Constantly trashing app.net is not seeing the bigger picture. Thankfully, people like Dalton aren't as short-sighted.

tarr11 14y ago

Dalton has managed to convince 8000 developers to cough up cash. He's got a working alpha with a high level of community engagement. Those are substantial accomplishments. I wouldn't write it off just yet.

Irishsteve 14y ago

Twitter was crap when it started, something happened which caused it to be useful. App.net is crap, but maybe something useful will come out of it and then we'll find it useful. p.s I'm in the app.net alpha.

iamdann 14y ago

It's not always about the idea. It's the execution.

tptacek 14y ago

The Svbtle branding here is A Bad Idea. I got halfway down the page, to the part where he appears to have picked a bug tracker project at random to call "me-too" and compare to a "Pascal for Dummies" exercise (there's a Pascal book somewhere that mentions Twitter? there's a high school that still teaches Pascal?) --- and started asking how something like this had managed to make it to Svbtle. Then I realized, "oh, it's wp-svbtle, whatever the fuck that is". This is a design whose entire purpose is to mimic the Svbtle blog network and confuse readers. Every design choice in it, from the duplication of Curtis' (pointless) "Kudos" thingy to the stroke width of the rules, is made not for its own sake but to duplicate the branding of someone else's site. It's a jerk move all around, not just to Curtis, or to anyone else who has decided to write for Curtis' network, but to readers, who deserve to know at a glance who an author is, or in this case isn't, affiliated with or endorsed by. And because it's an irritatingly obvious jerk move, it does a disservice to the author as well, making their words a sideshow on their own site.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
dcurtis 14y ago
Not only is it a pixel-for-pixel duplication of the design, but now they're copying my front-end code, too.
- prezjordan 14y ago
  Code meaning front-end CSS+JS? Just out of curiosity, is it possible to protect that? Cease & desist? Great job with Svbtle, Dustin. Sorry to see a dupe like this, on WordPress nevertheless!
- makmanalp 14y ago
  People copying things they like on the internet? Never! Seriously, what did you expect? You created something beautiful. You formed a visual brand that associated itself to good writing. You made it exclusive. People wanted in. They copied it. You can see examples of this from nature (animals imitating visual properties of other animals to make themselves more scary etc) to modern design strategy (using similar colors / fonts to create a subconscious mental association with something).

chrismonsanto 14y ago

There isn't really any useful content in that rant to comment about, so I'm going to go off topic a little bit: "If your senior high school computer science final project wasn’t building an issue tracker or Twitter clone, then your high school either a) didn’t offer computer science classes or b) you were a jock and didn’t take computer science." Is this really true? My brain immediately turned off when I read this, but then I realized I have no clue what people in high school usually program. I'll go first: around 14 or 15 I wrote a bytecode compiler for some god awful language that looked like the bastard child of Perl and Javascript... I guess around late high school time I was mainly working on Smogon, a competitive Pokemon website (still around and making money!) and NetBattle, an online simulator for several Pokemon generations (now defunct and replaced by www.pokemonshowdown.com) So HN, what was your "senior high school project"?

jmduke 14y ago

If your senior high school computer science final project wasn’t building an issue tracker or Twitter clone, then your high school either a) didn’t offer computer science classes or b) you were a jock and didn’t take computer science. I think this is the first time I've actually been filled with hatred towards a blog post.

cmelbye 14y ago

God... what? First off, which Pascal textbook would be both old enough to include a floppy disk, yet new enough to include a Twitter clone? I simply don't understand his main argument. App.net will be unsuccessful because it's just a clone of Twitter and people won't support a Twitter clone? App.net is certainly not and will not be a Twitter clone, and anyone who has spent more than five minutes looking at the platform, its roadmap, its API docs, etc., would know that.

pmarsh 14y ago

I would consider App.net successful if it pushes Facebook and Twitter to adopt some of what App.net is setting out to accomplish. Would it be great if App.net flourishes to the point of being a continued relevant tool and site for years? Of course. But its goals are worth keeping track of and working towards. No need to get so worked up about it against it.