After putting out a testimonial about developers' haven App.net (ADN) in which I questioned its viability due to being trapped in a spammy conversation thread about bacon from which there seemed no escape -- I was amazed at how the community swung into action to fix the problem.
It restored my faith in humanity -- at least for a day :)
App.net was set up by developers, for developers, as a refuge to create an environment independent from the influence of advertisers -- allowing creative freedom and more ownership -- and was successfully launched as a subscription service in the summer.
It was also meant to strike at the heart of Twitter, which has become increasingly commercial, exclusive and more difficult for developers to use as a platform for innovation over the past six years.
The ADN atmosphere is different also because it allows for 256 characters as
opposed to Twitter’s 140, meaning there is more in-depth conversation with
intelligent people – less broadcast, more chat.
In its nascent, or alpha, state, there are absolutely no protections for users. There's no way to block or report people, mute conversations, direct message (DM) – all those basic
protective aspects of Twitter, or even Google Plus (G+) where you can
create circles and decide who to share what with -- even your own stream is compulsorily
public and there’s no way to selectively hide it.
After my critical "App.net: User utopia?" blog post about ADN, where I outlined some of its pitfalls for users, hit its global stream I was sincerely touched by how many empathetic messages I received from users beckoning me back to the site.
A significant amount of conversation focused on how to remedy the problem of being reluctantly caught up in a stream or being unable to leave one. People also discussed how to rectify the problem of having nowhere to go for a private chat.
When murmurs started about "Patter", created by @duerig loosely based on some code by @q -- it was as if a bomb had dropped, decimating the main global stream.
We all pattered from ADN into a wonderful chatroom which literally felt like a parallel universe. I've never seen any space online generate such joy and camaraderie -- I've never seen anything close to it.
Before long, people were getting concerned about the fact that the updates were dying in the global stream as users revelled in the Patter chatroom.
"Now we can tell people to 'get a room'," said @po, referring to Patter's ability to provide private separate space for people to have conversations outside of the main stream.
The idea is that Patter, which can also be used within the Appnetizens interface designed by @adrianus, can help give users some control over the environment and help bring order to chaos.
Another bombshell was dropped on Wednesday with the news that Tapbots had released Netbot, an iPhone and iPad app for ADN.
The announcement instantaneously brought a flood of new users into the global stream. It also upset some developers slaving away to create other similar mobile products, and raised questions among some users about the integrity of the ADN mandate.
Order was more or less restored on Thursday and the atmosphere was more sedate as users adjusted to the new influx of people on ADN, recovered from the excitement of the previous day and buckled down to work on various apps.
**** Picture created on dood.li
**** Picture created on dood.li
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