The service we were building (I work at app.net) was a social app discovery service. It integrated with Facebook to show you what apps your friends were using and downloading, and display stories about the apps you use.
So you were extending Facebook's core features and you didn't expect Facebook to think that was being too competitive?
I'm pretty sure I've seen this somewhere else... at least a dozen times.
Aren't you always extending Facebook's core features when building with their API? The point of leveraging Facebook platform is to build amazing products that Facebook doesn't have the time or resources to create (see zuck's statement on the importance of Facebook platform during the earnings call).
We used Facebook's APIs and Open Graph in our app discovery service.
It was built and released before Facebook's App Center was announced, and Facebook dev-relations employees had previously been supportive of our endeavor.
And how is it related to join.app.net? I'm very confused that these two different things have the same name.
I am not sure how App.net, at least what it is now would have become a service on the FB platform.
Was App.net trying to do some other stuff before the attempt to build a 'real-time, ad-free social network'?
Yes it was supposed to be an app market on facebook. But since Dalton 'will never write another line of code for social platforms' i assume that ship is not sailing.