App.net, a new microblogging service, has been making a lot of noise recently -- because of its crowd-funded approach to financing, its no-advertising pledge, and the fact that it wants to cater to developers with an open API.
As interesting as the entire story is, that last point is the key for me.
App.net is the brainchild of Dalton Caldwell, CEO of Mixed Media Labs. He had a vision for a microblogging service -- with an emphasis on "service" -- supported by crowdfunding, where users and developers pay a fee to participate. Users get an ad-free service. Developers get access to the API to use the service as they wish. You can see him describe that vision in the video below:
The message resonated enough with early adopters that App.net blew past the company's weekend goal of raising $500,000 for initial development. According to The Next Web, it closed fundraising with an impressive final total of $803,000 from 12,315 backers.
Whatever you think of the approach (and not everyone thinks a user/developer-funded approach is any more or less pure than advertising), it was an impressive show of grassroots support for an alternative to mainstream social media.
The alpha iteration of App.net is not much to look at. On its face, it appears to be a simple microblogging service, but Mathew Ingram at GigaOM says it would be a mistake to dismiss it as only that. If you do, he says, you're clearly missing the point.
That's because App.net is less about the microblogging app and more about the open API. The project is actually a shot across the bow of Twitter, Facebook, and their increasingly firm control of their APIs. Caldwell has grown increasingly disenchanted with both mainstream social media companies, and he has decided to offer a different way of doing business.
There were a couple of drivers. First, Twitter announced that third-party developers had to bow to Twtter's will. Then came Caldwell's ill-fated meeting with Facebook executives. He was looking for support for his product launch, but he was told his product was too close to one already in development by Facebook. At that point, the executives offered to buy Caldwell's company. He refused and ended up writing an angry open letter to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg on his blog.
Which brings us to the new product and the idea of open APIs for developers. You may recall I wrote a post recently about a run-in Craigslist was having with a company called PadMapper, which had tapped into Craigslist data and displayed apartment ads on a map so users could see where the apartments were located. It was a creative and constructive use of Craigslist content. Craigslist reacted by going ballistic, calling the lawyers, and ordering PadMapper to stop. I suggested they were missing a monetization opportunity.
Now, along comes App.net, a service created by developers for developers and built on the idea that programmer access to the API is a core part of the service. In exchange for that access, the developers pay the company a fee. Caldwell recognizes something fundamental here: By giving up control of the API, the developers can make the best possible use of the service, and his service can make money off that access.
As for users, they pay a yearly fee of $50 for an ad-free service in which their data is not sold off to the highest bidders. They're given a variety of ways to access the service from the third-party developer pool that App.net's business model cultivates.
The funding hurdle was step one, and App.net handled it easily. The next step involves completing development of the core product. It may be true that App.net is more than a pure microblogging application, but it will require both users and developers in sufficient numbers in order to make the operation a profitable business. That may prove more challenging than the initial fundraising.
But whatever happens with this service -- whether it's a raging success or a dismal failure -- App.net has proven one key tenet already: Open APIs matter to developers, and they are willing to pay for the right to access them and use them as they see fit. Facebook, Twitter, and every other large organization trying to control its APIs would be wise to pay attention.
what matters most is not what neat and groovy features it has, but how many people it can get to sign up. If it doesn't go past a certain critical mass (which has gotten higher and higher with successes such as Twitter and Facebook), it doesn't matter.
Thanks for the update. It's encouraging to see them moving forward like this and the fact they are encouraging users to review and flag any clauses they don't like is also a huge step forward for this type of service. So far, I know, I like what I'm seeing from them.
Thanks for the link, Ron. I just checked out Dalton's letter and it was disappointing (but not surprising) to see Facebook do that. It's a competitive world out there now for social networks, and they're probably doing whatever they can to squash the competition. To some users, $50 a year might seem like a steep price to pay for a social networking site when there are many other "free" ones out there. But note that the "free" aspect comes with ads and people selling your contact information for money.
Dalton's idea is a commendable one and I hope App.net does succeed. It looks like the initial support was overwhelmingly good. It would be interesting to see what happens moving forward.
As this post, written by the creator of Instapaper, points out, Twitter is continuing to increase control over the API. This is what I'm talking about. This is why app.net has a chance and why Twitter could actually be screwing itself by trying to maintain tight control.
It's not only alienating developers, but it's also making it more difficult to share Twitter content. So in the name of presumably driving more people to the Twitter.com web site, it's reducing the ability to share Tweets, which is just counter-productive and anti-social and downright stupid on Twitter's part.
To clarify, they don't have access to the code. They have access to a development environment that sits on top of the code. iOS developers can develop iPhone apps, but they can't access the code. Apple simply provides them with the means to create applications for the environment. App.net is setting up a similar environment.
As I have made clear, I'm not making any predictions about the success of this project, but the fact they attracted 12,000 people to pay right out of the gate is certainly a sign that developers and users are looking for an alternative.
You may not see the value at this point, but let's see what they produce and then decide if it's worthwhile. I think the key here is to look beyond the application. That's not what this is about. If it were, identi.ca would be wildly popular and it's not. The key here will be if they can fullfill this vision to let the developers run with it. If the developers produce compelling applications, users will find them. If not, the project will be an interesting footnote.
That's not quite right. This isn't an open source project. Developers won't have access to the source code, nor can they change the code, but they can develop as they wish on top of the platform.
Caldwell and his company are giving developers access to the app.net programming environment much in the same way Facebook, Twitter, iOS and Androd do, but he's promising developers as long as they make a good-faith effort, he won't get in their way and they can build applications freely.
Good point, but I think they are trying to do more than build a micro-blogging application. They are trying to build a more sophisticated platform. I don't believe that Identic.a offers the kind of capabilities these developers hope to build into the platform.
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