And 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.
The 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.
I 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.
Well 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.
Thats 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.
I also said use. The primary thing I dislike about Twitter is that they now limit apps to 100K tokens. This past weekend Falcon Pro, the Twitter client I use, reached the limit and is now unable to offer it to additional users.
This also impacts me as a user because the official Twitter apps have special privileges that third party apps do not. I believe this is why third party apps do not support push notifications.
That's a limitation for people who build apps, not for the users. And it's not even that, it's a limitation for people who build apps and expect to scale them quite a bit, which, given the crowded space, doesn't really happen by accident.
This has pretty much no influence on users. It might slower the innovation a bit, but it's not like there's much innovation happening there to begin with..
No complaints? The sponsored tweets haven't annoyed you yet? The inability to use some twitter clients because Twitter refuses to give out more licenses hasn't annoyed you yet?
I use Twitter a lot, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't jump at the first chance of a real alternative.
I haven't found the sponsored tweets annoying at all. I mostly don't even notice them. I scan my feed and I only pay attention to the tweets which interest me. Everything else could be an ad as far as I'm concerned.
The number of sponsored ads don't seem high enough to make me feel like it's annoying.
As for Twitter clients. Eh, not sure I care so much. I just need a decent client which doesn't suck.
I think their recent decision sort of suck but as a user I don't know that I care too much.
This is exactly how the normal consumers look at these things. Outside of my tech life, no one cares at all.
They just joined Twitter, years after it was launched, because they wanted to see what interesting people & celebs were saying. Heck, the probably even heard about Twitter from an advert or some sort of marketing material, so adverts within Twitter won't bother them/me.
I feel like we as nerds should think in the long term.
Communication should be controlled by the users. Think about all the companies who were screwed over by Facebook's "Likegate." Decentralization is why I prefer Tent and IRC. App.net seems acceptable as well because of the open nature, though it is centralized.
Yes, the (few) sponsored ads seem no different than any other tweet you wouldn't care about anyway. I for one am quite accustomed to sifting through things this way, the ads don't seem like much of an extra burden, at least to me.
The 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!
There 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.
This 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.
I pay for Github because the few private repositories I have benefit from Github's frequently expanding feature set and make it worth the cash I pay each month easily. I think it's worth it to support a service with an iteration cycle that actively benefits its users to the point where paying for it is worth it.
I feel the same about App.Net. They're constantly coming out with new things, such as the hugely-more-powerful-than-Twitter Messages API and the Files API, and they're enabling devs to build apps for ADN that are significantly better than the offerings for Twitter. All in all, I enjoy using ADN far more than I do Twitter, to the extent that it's worth paying for.
Bitbucket's free private repositories is a godsend to academic and other small-time projects. Github can keep their hold on "public code repos as social networking".
This 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.
So 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?
185 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 293 ms ] threadEdit: Thanks!
http://blog.app.net/2012/10/01/app-net-pricing-changes/?utm_...
edit: All gone.
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.
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.
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.
Build or use your own app without worrying about hitting a token/user limit.
This also impacts me as a user because the official Twitter apps have special privileges that third party apps do not. I believe this is why third party apps do not support push notifications.
This has pretty much no influence on users. It might slower the innovation a bit, but it's not like there's much innovation happening there to begin with..
I use Twitter a lot, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't jump at the first chance of a real alternative.
The number of sponsored ads don't seem high enough to make me feel like it's annoying.
As for Twitter clients. Eh, not sure I care so much. I just need a decent client which doesn't suck.
I think their recent decision sort of suck but as a user I don't know that I care too much.
They just joined Twitter, years after it was launched, because they wanted to see what interesting people & celebs were saying. Heck, the probably even heard about Twitter from an advert or some sort of marketing material, so adverts within Twitter won't bother them/me.
Communication should be controlled by the users. Think about all the companies who were screwed over by Facebook's "Likegate." Decentralization is why I prefer Tent and IRC. App.net seems acceptable as well because of the open nature, though it is centralized.
kwildfeuer@me.com
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!
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.
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.
Like by having an account you're saying, hey, I'm rich enough to spend $7/mo just because I like a pretty UI.
Give it to charity for goodness sake.
But you get what out of App.net? Basically nothing.
gaurav [at] dadhania [dot] in
mcantelon at gm ail dot com
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.
Cheers.
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/
Edit - got it, thanks a million!