A start-up aiming to build a service that will be “what Twitter could have been” has successfully raised over $600 000.
The start-up, App.net, is the brainchild of outspoken entrepreneur and developer from San Francisco, Dalton Caldwell. In July, Caldwell posted a blog titled “What Twitter Could Have Been”.
According to Caldwell, as Twitter began to gain traction a year or two into its existence, a hugely divisive debate occurred within the company around whether to build the platform around its real-time API (application programming interface) or to move towards building its own version of Google's AdWords to monetise the platform.
Caldwell says: “As you likely already know, the advertising group won that battle, and many of the open API people left the company. While I can understand why the latter camp wanted to build an ad-based business, the futurist in me thinks this was a tragic mistake.
“If you are building an advertising/media business, it would then follow that you need to own all of the screen real-estate that users see. The next logical step would be to kill all third-party clients and lock down the data in the global firehose in order to control the 'content'.
“I believe an API-centric Twitter could have enabled an ecosystem far more powerful than what Facebook is today,” wrote Caldwell.
Anti-advertising
Based on the overwhelming support Caldwell's initial post received, he was spurred on to announce an “audacious proposal”.
“I believe so deeply in the importance of having a financially sustainable real-time feed API and service that I am going to refocus App.net to become exactly that. I have the experience, vision, infrastructure and team to do it.”
As a result, Caldwell launched a Kickstarter campaign to get what he believed would be critical mass to create the ad-free service. This 'critical mass' was pegged at $500 000 - a goal that was set for today (13 August).
The open, ad-free network will be funded by users (who will pay $50 a year for basic access) and developers (who pay $100 a year for API access and support). The join.app.net site states: “We're building a real-time social service where users and developers come first, not advertisers.
“We believe that advertising-supported social services are so consistently and inextricably at odds with the interests of users and developers that something must be done. Help us create the service we all wish existed.”
Announcing that App.net had reached its goal, Caldwell says: “Please understand that we built a functional Web application and working API to demonstrate that App.net is not 'vaporware'. We have a great deal of work to do.
“Along these lines, there are still a great many questions that need to be answered before App.net should be thought of as an operating service, rather than just an alpha prototype.”
Problem of paying
Twitter has recently been stepping on the toes of third-party developers by closing off its API and bringing what were traditionally third-party features in house. Twitter also recently ended its partnership with LinkedIn, and has stopped allowing Instagram users to find their existing contacts on the photo-sharing app. Such changes have sparked a number of online protests by developers.
At the end of June, Twitter's Michael Sippey posted on the site's developer blog that the new features being added by Twitter highlighted the importance of providing “the core Twitter consumption experience through a consistent set of products and tools”.
While it will remain to be seen if a paid-for social network can gain traction in a market dominated by free services, App.net currently has the backing of over 9 700 people who have donated towards its cause.
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