Why We Support App.net | Hacker News Reader

Why We Support App.net

social-igniter.com

22 pointsaaronpk11 comments

I think App.net is a gigantic communication screw up. If you already knew where Dalton was coming from, you know what he is talking about. But still to this day, if you only read app.net-related blog posts or info on the site, you come away feeling confused about what it is until you rely on other folks not officially connected to App.net--such as this blogger--to translate Dalton's vision in a way that can be understood by people who don't already know where Dalton's coming from.

Quote:

  [...] Perhaps that's biggest flaw with how App.net was presented thus far.
  Perhaps if Dalton had promised one or more of the following...

  * The primary codebase will be open source
  * A light weight client will be open source
  * The infrastructure will follow at least one federated standard (oStatus,
    Webfinger, Salmon, Activity Streams)
  * App.net will federate / push / syndicate data to Diaspora, Status.net, etc...
  * Each paid user of App.net can sponsor friends (5, 10, 25, 50, etc...) to
    use the service for free
  * If you donate Dalton will personally hand deliver to your doorstep 1
    flying unicorn ninja who has been raised on grass fed organic bacon

+1. Those things would push me over the edge to contribute $50 or more. Even without the unicorn ninja thing.

I don't want to pay for another "platform" that someone will be struggling to raise funding to replace in a few years. I want to pay for technology. And I want to bring my friends with me.

Read Dalton's response http://daltoncaldwell.com/a-response-to-brennan-novak the only thing missing is the free user invites and open source codebase, however someone has already made an iOS app to the platform https://github.com/sneakyness/AppApp

The free user invites are cheap. Not sure why they wouldn't do that. Open sourcing the code base is a much larger leap and if they're reluctant to do that then I'm reluctant to trust them. Not because everyone should open source technology product but they're essentially saying we should trust them to not do what Twitter did. Business model alone doesn't cut it for me.

I've always felt that not open sourcing goes against most of Dalton's arguments with App.net. I also realize open sourcing may kill the project under it's own weight. It's a tough call but I really wish they would do it :).

The "only thing missing" is everything on that list except the unicorn and Webfinger.

This is the first reasonable argument for app.net that I've heard. I'm not sure why, but until now I've only been hearing people talk about it as a "better Twitter".

I find it funny how, in the article, Brennan Novak asks, "Will App.net last into the next decade and provide the backbone of the federated web?"

There's being ambitious, and then there's talking gibberish about something that hasn't even been built yet.

A large amount of App.net has has been built and I've tested it out- it works great https://alpha.app.net Additionally, in the past I used to use PicPlz and iMeem, so i know the quality of products Dalton has engineered.

invite plz

invite to where?

Can someone explain the point of App.net. Is it not just a clone of Twitter which I pay to use instead of seeing ads ?

Because the obvious question is then if Twitter offers a similar payment model doesn't that mean App.net has no differentiators ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com