It's happening. Pay-to-play App.net is going freemium. In case you haven't been following, App.net is the crowd-funded subscription based social network that started last year. Having been inspired by the ideal of creating a social network where it actually caters for the users, I joined the network.
I must admit that I haven't been active on the network since joining. I have test drove the UI and downloaded an app on my phone, but I failed to incorporate the new network into my daily social networking routine.
For a casual user like me, it's all about automating the posting to a point where I don't have to think about posting. When I write a blog entry, it gets automatically posted to Facebook and Twitter. When Twitter allowed posting to LinkedIn, LinkedIn was also another network where I would post blog updates, but we all know what happened with the LinkedIn-Twitter relationship.
I don't know how App.net plans to solve that problem. For casual users like me, unless App.net is fully integrated with social media syndication tools, casual users will not be signing up to App.net and stay active for long.
One strategy is to be a very narrowly focused social network for targeted users. Just like Facebook started its bootstrapping process with college students and Twitter with SXSW attendees sharing their ideas with masses, App.net needs to identify its bootstrapping niche to build its user base. I think there may already be a couple of common denominators among existing early adopters, but that needs to be obvious to new users to join.
Maybe it should be about the geeks who love social media. Maybe it should be about the users who are against consumer culture (because App.net does not serve corporate interests and no ads). Whatever it will be, App.net needs to tell a story to the users about what it wants to be.
Not sure how long it will take the App.net's story to take its shape. Does anyone care to join App.net to figure out what the story should be? I have 5 invites to share. Let me know if you want one.
I must admit that I haven't been active on the network since joining. I have test drove the UI and downloaded an app on my phone, but I failed to incorporate the new network into my daily social networking routine.
For a casual user like me, it's all about automating the posting to a point where I don't have to think about posting. When I write a blog entry, it gets automatically posted to Facebook and Twitter. When Twitter allowed posting to LinkedIn, LinkedIn was also another network where I would post blog updates, but we all know what happened with the LinkedIn-Twitter relationship.
I don't know how App.net plans to solve that problem. For casual users like me, unless App.net is fully integrated with social media syndication tools, casual users will not be signing up to App.net and stay active for long.
One strategy is to be a very narrowly focused social network for targeted users. Just like Facebook started its bootstrapping process with college students and Twitter with SXSW attendees sharing their ideas with masses, App.net needs to identify its bootstrapping niche to build its user base. I think there may already be a couple of common denominators among existing early adopters, but that needs to be obvious to new users to join.
Maybe it should be about the geeks who love social media. Maybe it should be about the users who are against consumer culture (because App.net does not serve corporate interests and no ads). Whatever it will be, App.net needs to tell a story to the users about what it wants to be.
Not sure how long it will take the App.net's story to take its shape. Does anyone care to join App.net to figure out what the story should be? I have 5 invites to share. Let me know if you want one.
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