Some on alpha.app.net are arguing that app.net is "an infrastructure play for a million new networks to bloom. It's AWS not Twitter."
Not sure I completely got that message from Dalton's posts. He could simply have a marketing problem at this point, although he's done pretty well thus far if that's the case.
"He could simply have a marketing problem at this point, although he's done pretty well thus far if that's the case."
The message may by cloudy, but it's out there, which is the most impressive part of this in my opinion. App.net may be a good idea, but it's not really an original idea. And I had honestly never heard of Dalton Caldwell before this, and even now, he doesn't quite seem a Silicon Valley A-lister.
I'm not trying to knock him or the service, but I can't figure out how he got everyone talking about this so much. There's a million kinda-good-sounding start up ideas floating around out there and even the best of them often die due to lack of traction or being drowned out. And yet even though app.net doesn't even look like it's going to get through initial funding, it's all over the tech community.
He's relatively plugged into the SV tech scene. He also struck a cord with his original blog post[1]. App.net was obviously just a reaction to the outpouring of support for the ideas he expressed in that post. This could just be proof that 80,000+ page views of a blog post does not equal $500K in paid users at $50, $100, or $1,000 a pop.
More recently he received a ton of attention from his open letter to Zuck[2].
> Some on alpha.app.net are arguing that app.net is "an infrastructure play for a million new networks to bloom. It's AWS not Twitter."
That's actually the vibe I got, since he's targeting developers. I'm thinking Ordinary People will never pay that much for it, so it'll probably end up as a backend for applications.
> He could simply have a marketing problem at this point
As far as I'm concerned, he does. I haven't checked it out since the alpha launched, but from the pre-alpha video and stuff, I wasn't able to figure out what the practical uses of his product will be. Effectively communicating the practical benefits of your product is an especially important part of marketing if you're targeting people like HN readers, and Dalton really dropped the ball there.
> he's done pretty well thus far if that's the case
Surprisingly well. I really don't understand why this project has been this successful.
Not sure I completely got that message from Dalton's posts. He could simply have a marketing problem at this point, although he's done pretty well thus far if that's the case.