This is wishful thinking. App.net describes itself as essentially a third-party-developer-friendly Twitter with user-friendly privacy practices. From their FAQ

This is wishful thinking. App.net describes itself as essentially a third-party-developer-friendly Twitter with user-friendly privacy practices. From their FAQ: "OK, great, but what exactly is this product you will be delivering? As a member, you'll have a new social graph and real-time feed that you access from an App.net mobile application or website. At first, the user experience will be very similar to what Twitter was like before it turned into a media company. On a forward basis, we will focus on expanding our core experience by nurturing a powerful ecosystem based on 3rd-party developer built "apps". This is why we think the name "App.net" is appropriate for this service. From a developer perspective, you will be able to read and write to a Twitter-like API. Developers behaving in good faith will have free reign to build alternate UIs, new business models of their own, and whatever they can dream up." Notice how the only differences between their described product and Twitter are the two factors I mentioned above. Developers don't build Twitter-based products because they need a stream-as-a-service to build upon. They build them because there are users there. This is why I don't understand the App.net hype.