App.net Plans a Better Twitter


The days of Twitter and some other social networks may be numbered, if App.net founder Dalton Caldwell has his way. Caldwell’s new social network operates on a principle as revolutionary as cable TV might have seemed back in the days when broadcast television was the standard model. Caldwell wants an advertisement-free social media platform supported by payments from users.

A New Direction

Voting with their money. If you think Caldwell is crazy, think again! The company has already raised more than $500,000 from 7,372 “backers” who have already signed up to be App.net’s first users. Membership starts at $50 for the basic service and goes up to $1000 annually for “Pro” service. The Verge

No fuss, no muss. Take your first look at the App.net site, and it may seem a bit spartan when compared with its more lavishly funded and ad-driven competitor, Twitter, but Caldwell is quick to remind users his team built a functional Web application and API to demonstrate App.net in action and that there is much work to do now that funding goals are reached.  App.net Global Feed

Rallying the troops. Caldwell thanks his supporters as the App.net team reaches its ambitious funding goal, giving a bit more insight into the new business model the social site represents. If this is the social media community you wish to join, there’s no better introduction. Dalton Caldwell

Twitter Troubles

Welcome to the underground. Deep beneath the surface of the busy world of networking and 24/7 patter that is Twitter lies a thriving underground economy where followers are sold by the thousands over Ebay and other Websites, and many are fake. Barracuda Labs

Blackout…again! Yikes! on July 26 Twitter again experienced a worldwide outage, this time from between 8:20 and 9:00 a.m. to10:25 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. The outage is the second for Twitter in just over thirty days, and was caused this time not by a “cascading bug” but by two redundant parallel systems failing simultaneously. Twitter Blog

Still the One

Social Media U. But for all its shortcomings, Twitter has many qualities unparalleled for the online business owner or social media entrepreneur, qualities perhaps hard to replace with a pay-for-use system some will not think worth the cost. KissMetrics

Twitter basics revisited. For those who will be staying with Twitter or who perhaps haven’t yet used the service for business, here is a collection of must-have resources to start making your Twitter efforts the best they can be. Idea Sprouts

1 Comment ▼
One Reaction
  1. Interesting. It goes to show, that over applying ads and affiliate programs, to your blogs, websites, social media sites, etc. can become more of an annoyance than a benefit. The biggest drawback I see to it is the price barrier for entry; however, that also can create the initial “elitism factor” like Facebook did back when it first started. Will definitely be following this closely.