I don't think it solves one, I think its providing a way for developers to stick it to the man. In this case, Twitter, Craigslist, and Facebook.
The problem with Twitter and Facebook is that they've moved away from supporting external developers into media companies (so the argument goes).
If that's true, then Twitter and Facebook are looking for the best interests of it's advertising partners like every media company (radio, television, print, etc.) rather than the consumers.
In the case of Facebook and Twitter, it means rolling out features that benefit the advertisers. Now, it is certainly possible that the features rolled out could benefit both sides, but the moment Twitter/Facebook has to make a decision between the two they'll pick the advertisers since that's how they butter their bread.
App.net, by contrast, only has one option which is make the best choices for the developers/users. In some sense, this is really more of a B-to-B venture than a B-to-C since, ideally, App.net focuses on the API and let's the developers build the robust applications.
Frankly, I like this idea.
Besides, if it's such a mediocre idea why are some of the smartest folks in tech backing it already? Check out the gallery of community members on the signup page.
More power to the founders, I'm just skeptical because it still isn't clear what this project is supposed to accomplish. It's almost like Occupy got involved in a software project to vent anger over the big companies acting in ways with which they disagree.
Still, good luck to the App.net team. I hope they succeed and I'm proven to be an ignorant Luddite!
More importantly, it's not just a bunch of ideologues camped out on a lawn smoking weed. Dalton is making an assertion that the only way to make the service that the Twitter developers of 2006, 2007, 2008 signed up for, is to enshrine it in founding principles. This is because inevitably advertisers always outbid users.
Because of this, of course VCs aren't going to pony up the $500k. There's not that much upside for a VC. But that doesn't mean the service doesn't have value, it just means that value can't be captured the same way a billion-user free service can. However, the promise of stability means that for developers it is much less risky to build against, and they can create much more value. Some of that value maybe captured, some of it not, but just because no one is making a buck doesn't mean there isn't a tremendous amount of value being created.
Finally, the Kickstarter thing is critical to this project because it validates the idea itself. If a VC writes a check that proves nothing, but if 10,000 users promise $50 that is a critical mass right there. It's sort of like how public radio members drive the big contributions. No one is going to pay $50 for an empty social network, but if there are 10,000 quality people there you know there will be at least something interesting on day one.
No, I disagree on this. This is not true. Remember, the developers wouldn't even care about developing for this platform if it wasn't big in the first place. Developers didn't make it big. Twitter became big, and developers came flocking in.
Any developer would be a fool now to build a product whose core relies on Twitter's API. And yet the core functionality of Twitter is an incredibly useful base to build on.
With App.net you don't have the volume of Twitter, but on the other hand you will presumably have a much higher signal to noise ratio. It won't be inundated with marketing spam, bot follows, and banal teen banter. And in any case, Twitter was small once too, and people found a use for it. I think a critical mass of 10,000 is definitely enough to enable some interesting apps.
I could see some potential in the enterprise space to license out the API for companies to then build their own information services atop of.. but that seems to get away from the "power to the people" idea this project seems to be capitalizing on.
>App.net focuses on the API and let's the developers build the robust applications.
Robust applications that do what? I'm not sure what the value of the API is, isn't the point of a Twitter-like API to allow people to use Twitter data. The API side of the equation isn't that hard to do.. it's the content accessed with the API that would be useful. I can see and appreciate the tech in this project, but I'm not sure why a developer would build an application to consume an API without much data..
I'm confused. I don't mean any disrespect to the folks involved or their supporters, but I'm not sure what this project will accomplish -- is it a technology platform or a content platform? And is the technology that "hard" -- it seems to me that getting the content would be the hard part.
EDIT: Incidentally, you do know that other people are trying similar things, right? Heello, for instance, is rebooting with a slightly different model: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/08/08/twitpic-founders-he....