August 11, 2012
App.net 'puts users first'
The producers of a new service called App.net are betting that people are willing to pay for a service similar to Twitter if it is better than Twitter. At first glance it looks promising.
I especially like their business model, which depends on payment from users instead of advertisers:
Rather than waste most of our engineering time coming up with new and exciting ways to sell your personal data to advertisers, 100% of our engineering and product team will be focused on building the most innovative and reliable service we can.
In an age of cynicism, these are refreshing words indeed. There’s just one problem — they need $500,000 in the next two days to get the project off the ground. As of this writing, they’re at $423,950 — so tantalizingly close. But you can help make it happen.
Update: They more than met their goal.