9 ms·
As of today, App.net is a freemium service
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jpinkerton88 14y agoinvite please? :)
- benatkin 14y agoAnd the million dollar question is how do I convert my paid account to a free account? Will it happen automatically after the year I got from the KickStarter-like program runs out? Also being able to follow a maximum of 40 people sounds like a feature, not a bug.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoThe pledge was for $50. In October, the annual fee was lowered to $36. As a result, current members received 5 extra months on top of the first year. By the time your credit is up, in February or March 2014, I'm sure you'll be able to change your account to a free plan. http://blog.app.net/2012/10/01/app-net-pricing-changes/?utm_campaign=emails&utm_source=emailsrc&utm_medium=email http://blog.app.net/2012/10/01/app-net-pricing-changes/?utm_...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jh3 14y agoI can invite three people. edit: All gone.
- tylermauthe 14y agoMe please: me@tylermauthe.com
- jh3 14y agoInvited.
- sumit_psp 14y agoThanks:).
- tylermauthe 14y agoThanks! :)
- mazsa 14y agopeter dot hnusername at gmail. Thank you.
- sumit_psp 14y agoCan you send me one? pasupalaks at gmail
- jh3 14y agoInvited.
- evanmoran 14y agoWould love an invite if anyone has any left. My name at gmail!
- CyberDroiD 14y agoI prefer Twitter over App.net. So far there isn't any reason for me to switch. I have no complaints, so I have no need for a competing service. Anyone else out there feel the same way? App.net's environment seems hostile (like following only up to 40 people), compared to the friendly environment and user experience with Twitter.
- samastur 14y agoNo ;) Obviously you are not alone in liking Twitter, but seriously, no reason whatsoever? I don't doubt what you say. I just find it astonishing that Twitter behavior and service has been such an absolute match for you.
- untog 14y agoWell I'm sure that plenty could be done to improve Twitter, but I'd ask whether app.net does any of those things. Last time I looked it is pretty much exactly the same.
- twog 14y agoThats exactly how I feel as well. I would pay for a social network if it created a new/better experience for me, but App.net is a twitter clone. What can I do on app.net that I cant do on twitter? What part of the experience do they beat Twitter on? App.net also hasnt been successful enough to attract the majority of people I follow on Twitter. So their value proposition for me looks like this: Im paying for something that looks, functions, and feels like Twitter without the people to follow to create that content.
- signed0 14y ago> What can I do on app.net that I cant do on twitter? What part of the experience do they beat Twitter on? Build or use your own app without worrying about hitting a token/user limit.
- 14y ago
- tylermauthe 14y agowould love an invite please, me@tylermauthe.com
- bluetidepro 14y agoHere you go: https://join.app.net/p/kvyxdfrbhj https://join.app.net/p/kvyxdfrbhj
- wildfeuer 14y agoWould anyone be able to spare an invite? kwildfeuer@me.com
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- selectout 14y agoJoining in the crowd...anyone else have an invite? calvin [at] selectout.org
- 1morematt 14y agoI WOULD LOVE AN INVITE!!! matt [at] ingrouille [dot] net
- bluetidepro 14y agoSent you one
- criley 14y agoThe second that App.net was announced and I saw the prices, I was out. You don't pay money to develop for a service that only developers are using. The price was extremely high in comparison to what it offered: Sure, Apple charges to develop for iOS, but iOS has a few hundred million credit-card enabled customers buying software. App.net had a bunch of already-paid developers using the service. I tried to figure out the point through a few emails with the creator but ultimately it felt like a service for developers flush with spending money to join a sort of app vanity press. I'm glad that it's opening up now and I'm suddenly starting to get interested in the project!
- Void_ 14y agoMeh, App.net always seemed to me like an elite club of rich Twitter haters... Like by having an account you're saying, hey, I'm rich enough to spend $5/month just because I don't like a company. Give it to charity for goodness sake.
- Shank 14y agoThere are a lot of users & developers who've been burned in the past by Twitter's moves, one way or another. The problem with requiring cash is that it does very little to encourage people to try on the service without being committed to it. By moving to this free (with 40 people followed) model, they can allow users to try and thus get more that are likely to upgrade to the higher tier when they want more. Developers (like @falcon_android) that have hit Twitter's token limit are also getting encouragement to move or support it - as it's not a small subset but a very large one of people who can use the service.
- bitcartel 14y agoApp.net is not open source. Developers are building on top of a proprietary system and could get burned again.
- Shank 14y agoThis is entirely true, but App.net's model relies on a healthy third party app ecosystem to drive new users & keep existing ones. The Twitter API limitations aren't a point that can be paid for or anything of the sort. As far as we've seen, once a client hits the magical 100,000 token limit, no client has come out of the process with more tokens.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kevingibbon 14y agoWhen do we deem the App.net experiment a failure?
- trafficlight 14y agoIf it's an experiment it's neither a success nor failure. It's just a data point.
- GVRV 14y agoWould love an invite! :) gaurav [at] dadhania [dot] in
- mcantelon 14y agoAnyone got an invite? mcantelon at gm ail dot com
- lux 14y agoWould love an invite :) john dot luxford at gmail
- bluetidepro 14y agosent
- lux 14y agoThanks!
- halis 14y agoThis is hilarious! app.net was not designed to be freemium at all! I remember when they came out, the whole point of having no free accounts was so that you couldn't have people creating 50 accounts for spam (most people wouldn't pay the money to do this). And also the idea was if people paid for the service, then you wouldn't need to sell ads or raise funding or come out with public APIs that you then took away when dev's used them in ways you didn't like. I think they are changing their tune now b/c they can only get devs to pay for an account.
- Yeri 14y agoI'd love an invite as well (yeri@tiete.be). Cheers.
- trotsky 14y agoSo remember this: at its core, App.net is an ad-free, subscription-based platform, a backbone, a dialtone. [1] I had to go back and find that to make sure I wasn't misremembering. If the free tier includes a cap on the number of people you can follow, has the "we're not just a pay twitter" angle been abandoned? [1] http://blog.app.net/2012/08/ http://blog.app.net/2012/08/
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- samoakley 14y agoAnyone with remaining invites, It'd be great if you could hook me up with one: sam(at)blork.co.uk
- terhechte 14y agoI do have some invites, email me at appetizer@instadesk-app.com first come, first serve :)
- Avenger42 14y agoI emailed to request one. If you're out, thanks anyway! Edit - got it, thanks a million!
- igorgue 14y agoInvite please? igfgt1 [at] gmail [dot] com
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- scott_to_s 14y agoApp.net was a great refuge away from all the spammers, and I'm totally happy to pay to keep them out. Very disappointed in this change of policy.
- Avenger42 14y agoYou still shouldn't get spammers - if all of a paid member's invites go to people who get blacklisted as spammers shortly afterwards, that member shouldn't get any more invites to offer.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- MWil 14y agoinvite plz wilcut.matthew at gmail dot com
- theootz 14y agoIf anyone has an extra invite, would love to have one please: ootz0rz+hn@gmail.com
- sucrenoir 14y agoI would love an invite jm[at]iesta.com Thanks :)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- tsurantino 14y agoCan someone spare me an invite? arturtsurkan@gmail.com
- antoni 14y agoCan the new (free tier) members also invite other people?
- IbJacked 14y agoAny more invites floating around? I'd love to have one :) silentreign at gmail.com
- tuananh 14y agowow lots of people got invited. If anyone til got a spare invite, please send me [at] tuananh.us .Thanks a bunch.
- syncop8 14y agoI need a Dribbble invite. I will trade an app.net invitation for one ;) Portfolio: http://davidhiggins.me http://davidhiggins.me Dribbble: http://dribbble.com/davidhiggins http://dribbble.com/davidhiggins Send me an E-Mail: david@higg.im
- adamnemecek 14y agoLet me try some reverse psychology: No one send me an invite at adamnemecek(shift+2)gmail.com.
- MWil 14y agono invite sent!
- orangethirty 14y agoSeems like a move to inject some momentum into a stalled growth.
- juan_juarez 14y agoIn the MMORPG world, even handing out free trials, let alone going free to play, is often a sign that a game that's dying. It's a last-ditch effort to keep things going for a few more months.
- Shank 14y agoI think that's the wrong way of going about what they're offering. Either they're lying in that blog post (which would be very disingenuous to the people who pay them to operate, the users), or they legitimately had an idea of a free model with benefits added on and wanted to get some buffer cash before going that way. Everyone saw the writing on the wall about growth when it launched, and the best solution to drive new users (and encourage them to upgrade) is to offer a service at a model that allows them to "get their feet wet" without signing up with a credit card.
- eridius 14y agoIs World of Warcraft dying? They've been handing out free trials for many years now.
- dubcanada 14y agoSlowly yes... But they still have a massive money cow.
- juan_juarez 14y agoIt's not always a bad sign, as both WoW & EVE Online have trials and are both running quite strong. In most cases, however, unless the game was launched with free trials/F2P in their business model, it's a sign that they're struggling to get/retain users.
- 14y ago
- jlongster 14y agoI have 3 invites. First people to answer these questions correctly gets one (only answer one question): * What is the integral of "x + 2"? * How would you implement coroutines with continuations? (Just a very brief description is fine) (edit, if nobody answers this in a few min I'll just invite people) * What is memoization?
- imkevinxu 14y agox^2/2 + 2x + C
- danabramov 14y agoIn CoffeeScipt-flavored pseudocode, I'd say memoize (f): -> cache = { } () -> h = hash arguments cache [h] ? (cache [h] = (f arguments)) And my email would be my username at most popular email service dot com.
- jlongster 14y agoI don't know CoffeeScript too well, but reading as pseudo-code looks good. What email do you want me to use?
- 14y ago
- runn1ng 14y agoI have given more downvotes in this story comment section than in my whole Hacker News history.
- bdcravens 14y agoYep, me too.
- IceyEC 14y agoI'd appreciate an invite if anybody has one to share: chmacnaughton [at] gmail [dot] com
- csmeder 14y agoI would love an invite. My email is csmeder (gmail.com)
- danielsamuels 14y agoI wouldn't mind an invite if someone has one going: daniel.samuels1@gmail.com
- jwarzech 14y agoFor those wanting to jump onto App.net backstitch (http://backstit.ch http://backstit.ch) has over 100 invites to give out.
- josiahthomas 14y agoI would love an invite. josiahdthomas [at] gmail [dot] com
- bdcravens 14y agoI'm sorry, all of the replies on HN begging for invites are kind of annoying.
- goldfeld 14y agoIf you want an invite follow me on app.net.
- olalonde 14y agoI'll be happy to follow if you invite me :) Email in profile.
- manish_gill 14y agoThe paid angle was the only reason I never bothered with app.net. Seems like I need to ask around for invites now. :) Anybody got one?
- dangero 14y agoI'm going to look at this from their perspective. They have a ton of subscribers right now, but they have 2 problems on the near horizon: 1. They know that a lot of subscribers have abandoned the service and probably won't pay again, but they don't want to have to report that the number of users is declining once those subscriptions start to expire. 2. Acquiring new customers is not happening fast enough to keep critical mass or grow. This move is to address those two problems. I also think it's a negative signal for the future of the company because I don't think a limited free account will get people to join. While they make clear that they are not a Twitter clone, the concept of following people is a Twitter concept, and you don't have those same limitations on a Twitter free account. There's something in general that bothers me about App.net. In my career I've found that software engineers rarely are able to climb the org chart like business people are. The reason I've found is that engineers in general have a certain disdain for schmoozing and company politics, so they try to isolate themselves from it. App.net's marketing pitch I feel appeals to that isolationist desire and that's part of the reason it was such a hit.
- eridius 14y agoWhat's your evidence to support claim #1?
- ChikkaChiChi 14y agoActually, I think the lack of active users was proven recently. This "goodwill" move seems to reinforce that. This smells like Second Life's PR all over again. edit: OP changed #1. Used to say they had a ton of users.
- dangero 14y agoAre you talking about me? I didn't change my post in any way.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chadscira 14y agoadd me to the list chadvscira [at] gmail
- webwanderings 14y agoSo this starts a new business model: app.net apps and their paid users prostituting for customers/followers with an invite?
- kmlymi 14y agoif anyone has an invite left, kmlymi (at) gmail.com please.
- perishabledave 14y agoAnyone see the 40 people limit as a problem with this working? I would think limiting connections would limit the usefulness of the service, leading free users to dismiss ADN. I would like to see ADN become a fully armed and op.. err fully sustainable service (I paid up when they started), but I'm wondering if they should have went further with the free tier.
- eridius 14y agoFor a lot of people, the only ADN functionality they really care about is that which replicates Twitter. How do you provide a free tier to these people that doesn't remove any incentive to go paid? Limiting the number of people you can follow seems like a great way to do this.
- perishabledave 14y agoI'm interested to see what uses people come up with for ADN's storage. If there are some neat uses, that could be a great incentive. I don't disagree with the limit providing a great incentive to go paid, but when a free user joins, there is a point where the user decides this service is neat/useful enough that he wants to pay for it. I wonder if this limit might hinder people reaching that point.
- Shank 14y agoIf anything, it gives incentive to follow only people you truly care about instead of the "everybody follow everybody" model Twitter has. Probably a lot less people willing to follow companies and more following users & interacting with a smaller pool of them.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- supercoder 14y agoFree as in falling.
- laureny 14y agoFirst they charge for it. Then they make it free. Then they die.
- pkrumins 14y agoCan I've an invite please? peteris.krumins@gmail.com
- dpatrick86 14y agoMe too. dan@mdpatrick.com
- jwarzech 14y agoSent you an invite!
- ronaldsvilcins 14y agocan you sent me too? ronalds.vilcins [at] gmail.com :)
- jwarzech 14y agoSent!
- ronaldsvilcins 14y agothanks!
- vongrippen 14y agoCould I get one too? mcochran [_at_] linux.com
- jwarzech 14y agoSent!
- jwarzech 14y agoSent you one courtesy of backstitch!
- gatesphere 14y agoHopping on the begging train: gatesphere [at] gmail. Thanks!
- ChikkaChiChi 14y agoI thought that the paywall was supposed to keep degenerates like me away from those cliques that formed during the early years of the term "blogosphere" Wasn't the whole point of this to make you pay to listen to people like Scoble? The only people who care about platforms are people like us. The average user doesn't care about App.Net being a "more civilized" Twitter.
- mumphster 14y agoGlad to see this. I really liked playing around with their API and even wrote a SMS <-> App.Net gateway client thing (https://github.com/Ell/appdotnet-sms/blob/master/app.py https://github.com/Ell/appdotnet-sms/blob/master/app.py)
- ineedtosleep 14y agoI haven't followed app.net too closely, but was that fact that "[...] [they] initially conceived of App.net as a freemium service" a secret at all? From the tone of the comments so far, it's like this entire thing is a surprise.
- lovamova 14y agoIf this account gets an invite lovamova@gmail.com, I think I don't visit HN daily for nothing.
- indy 14y agoIf anyone still wants an invite, I've got 3 available. Just send your email address to appdotnetinvite@indy.io
- ronaldsvilcins 14y agoCan someone invite me, please? ronalds.vilcins [at] gmail.com
- ronaldsvilcins 14y agoWould love an invite to app.net please, ronalds.vilcins@gmail.com
- tubbo 14y agoSo now App.net wants to waste both my money and my time?
- dmalenko 14y agoAny spare invite for dmalenko @ gmail.com, please?
- nealpgards 14y agowould love an invite if anyone has an extra! nealpgardner at gmail
- gogoalba 14y agocould you give me invitation, thanks, hsj717#126.com，
- jwarzech 14y agoIf anyone is still interested in invites, backstitch (http://backstit.ch http://backstit.ch) still has a bunch to hand out.