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I don't know if red herring would be the way to call it, but the general summation that the "success" of App.net is due to marketing (particularly the out-pouri

I don't know if red herring would be the way to call it, but the general summation that the "success" of App.net is due to marketing (particularly the out-pouring of Dalton Caldwell to the internet masse) is spot on. Most people, especially on HN, pointed to the way "Dalton handled things" as the reason for wanting App.net to succeed. What drives the majority of the activity on App.net are these continuing discussions of what App.net could be, how fantastic it could be and what are the various kinds of pains it would solve. In fact, these very same conversations are as generic and ambiguous as the way that I describe them. Very few specific points are brought up, but rather, there are these sweeping discussions taking place on the platform. I'm kind of curious whether what Dalton is trying to do with app.net is only capable of being accomplished with Twitter and with Twitter only. This is considering Twitter's userbase, Twitter's 3rd party app ecosystem, Twitter's traction and Twitter's history. My point in saying this is that, it's impossible to recreate all this with another service (app.net). They are starting from scratch not only in function, but in context. I'd argue this is what's leading to the ambiguous dynamic and cloudy future for the service.

sramsay 14y ago
I agree that a lot of people are cathecting their desires onto app.net. I'm probably guilty of that as well (and yes, I coughed up the $50). But what got me excited was his basic insight -- not entirely novel, I'll grant -- that any giant social media company selling ads is going to be beholden to advertisers, and that a social media company that is beholden to their users might be a different thing. Lots of things are possible here. The product might suck. They might get totally overwhelmed. They might not be able to sell it. Their API might end up being worse than the others (though it doesn't look that way to me). But people kick in to kickstarter-style things because there's some idea they want to get behind (e.g. "sword fighting games should be better"), even if it doesn't pan out. And to be honest, even the OP -- in the throes of his cynicism -- is obviously experiencing the same sensation.

sramsay 14y ago

I agree that a lot of people are cathecting their desires onto app.net. I'm probably guilty of that as well (and yes, I coughed up the $50). But what got me excited was his basic insight -- not entirely novel, I'll grant -- that any giant social media company selling ads is going to be beholden to advertisers, and that a social media company that is beholden to their users might be a different thing. Lots of things are possible here. The product might suck. They might get totally overwhelmed. They might not be able to sell it. Their API might end up being worse than the others (though it doesn't look that way to me). But people kick in to kickstarter-style things because there's some idea they want to get behind (e.g. "sword fighting games should be better"), even if it doesn't pan out. And to be honest, even the OP -- in the throes of his cynicism -- is obviously experiencing the same sensation.