Joe Caiati:
For many, the lure of an exclusive social network and the lust for reaching the masses will keep most attached to both services; including myself. As much as I would rather just be navigating to one unified service, App.net has the potential to disrupt my social experience. A disruption that can turn out to be pleasant surprise or another failed startup.
Joe brings up some good points about App.net. It’s intriguing, but right now people are splitting their time between the two. Until it gains critical mass, we really won’t know how it will do. But the price — any price — may stop that in its tracks.
Many have asked if I supported App.net. I tried but something happened during the sign-up process. I contacted them via the support email and tried on Twitter to get a response, but never heard back. So, no I didn’t pay for the service, but I would have.
I can see it becoming a popular niche product, but it will never get to Facebook and Twitter levels. People love free.
Maybe I shouldn’t say never, in the future I guess it’s possible that how / where people spend their money could change and services like this could be more important than something else.
Sounds bizarre they never got back to you. I’ve had a couple of exchanges with them and got the response the same day each time.
I agree with Arment, $50 a year is too much to ask. If they priced it at $10, I’d sign up. (or if they ever do) I’d consider $20, but it wouldn’t be automatic and they’d have to have a big user base so it didn’t always feel like screaming in the wind.
The price is essential to the experience.
By costing money it won’t have spam bots – the cost to add spam to the system will be too high to spammers.
They seem to have wide open sales of memberships now for $50.00. I won’t be considering it until the price hits $20.00
If the app worth it, I would pay for it.
I saw people spending a lot of money on games subscriptions like WoW.
Off course people will pay if it worth. This new way of social network cut the spammers too.
I liked!
The price of admission not only keeps out the advertisers and spam but it will likely improve the quality of the content overall. I suspect I will see less photos of delicious meals (a social networking faux pas if there ever was one) and see more information that I am interested in and can actually use.