Netbot: An App.net Client from Tweetbot Creators

[colinsidoti]

This. I don't think App.net would have worked a year ago, maybe even not six months ago. But now, with Twitter actively attacking their developers, I imagine we'll be seeing a ton of ports from Twitter to App.net.

Twitter definitely considered the risk of cutting off their development community, but I don't think they intended to hand those developers off to a competing platform. Good timing from App.net.

[whalesalad]

App.net will get lots of hackers and people in our community, but in terms of reaching critical mass ... I don't think it will work.

People join twitter now out of societal pressure. "What is this thing? What is this ad on the subway that says I should follow them on twitter? Who's this athlete that is now Kobe Bryant with a strange @username at the end of his name?"

Developers, techy individuals, and people who consume twitter at a high level are more inclined to pay for it.

People who casually use it to help trend the latest hashtag about #whatmenreallywantfromawoman could care less. They're not going to pay a yearly fee for this, especially when the line between this and twitter is very blurry.

p.s. I am an app.net user and own a copy of netbot.

[kmfrk]

The App.net reward program probably motivated them as well: http://blog.app.net/blog/2012/09/27/announcing-the-app-net-d....

I think the App.net guys made an astute observation that the biggest hurdle to attracting developers was doing away with the perception as the platform as a gamble for developers.

It doesn't hurt that the Tapbots guys used the Tweetbot apps to piggyback on, of course.

[drharris]

Pay money to view a feed from people who paid money to view each others' feeds, with conversation about the feed? It all seems so meta.

[diego]

Just because it's money? You're also spending your time, effort, attention, and opportunity cost.

Is college meta because you spend money to work for free with people who also spend money, while learning from people who get paid money to teach you?

You're probably more used to services that monetize with ads, and encourage quantity of accounts at the expense of quality because it's good for their numbers. Nothing meta about one or the other.

[diego]

Netbot is causing quite a stir at app.net. Here's a word cloud of the past hour's global timeline:

http://adn.loqix.com/appwords.17:00-03.10.2012.png

[johns]

Check out the client stats: http://appnetizens.com/clientstats

[89a]

What are they talking about other than netbot though?

Before netbot that did they ever talk about anything other than "When can we get a good native client"

[modernerd]

Tapbots link: http://tapbots.com/software/netbot/

App Store link: http://itunes.apple.com/app/netbot-for-iphone-app.net/id5635...

[bradleyjoyce]

I'm curious as to why they created a completely separate app. Why not just integrate App.net functionality into Tweetbot? I'd certainly be much more likely to use it that way... and I even paid the $100 developer fee for app.net.

[swilliams]

I'm pretty sure the newer TOS for Twitter precludes that.

[whalesalad]

Yeah they're essentially identical platforms in terms of interaction. Reading a stream, replying, retweeting/reposting etc...

They already have multi-user support, I'd rather interact with one app in this way. Or better, have the client merge your two accounts so that app.net/twitter become seamless and instead of thinking about who is on where, you simply enjoy it through the window of your client and none of that matters.

But.. I'm sure it took some good work to develop this and by simply updating Tweetbot they might not get reimbursed for that dev time. Rather, the new app must've been required.

I look forward to an integrated client down the road.

[nitinthewiz]

People can post from Netbot to both twitter and App.net. Twitter's TOS doesn't allow the twitter app to post to anything else...

[jeffgreco]

Two apps = two purchases.

[ceejayoz]

If nothing else, the extra revenue can't hurt.

[astrodust]

Still not sure why I'm supposed to care about app.net enough to pay $5/mo.

[pgrote]

I cannot tell you a good reason ... and I signed up during the announcement period. lol

For me, it came down to wanting to be part of something being built from the ground up. Heck, I am not even a big Twitter user.

[mikeevans]

What about $3/mo? They just introduced a $36/year plan.

[joeblau]

This looks awesome! I was wondering how long it would take for companies with Twitter clients to port over to App.net. The App.net platform looks like it may give Twitter a run for its money.

[cicloid]

My favorite client in the new frame... I wonder how much time did take to port the network code to App.net? And if using a different key for crossposting.

[aneth4]

I'm an AppNet user, but pretty limited in frequency. The primary reason is that I want proper posts to facebook and don't want to post in two places. I would like to see apps like this have the option to cross-post to facebook and twitter.

Ifttt fails because it does not allow proper link posts to facebook, and going through twitter to facebook results in truncated messages.

[barredo]

Now they have my attention. It is an incredible client.

[timmillwood]

I would sign up for app.net if they supported open standards such as OStatus.

[abraham]

They have committed to supporting open standards like Activity Streams, PubSubHubBub, and Webfinger. While not OStatus explicitly, it looks like the majority of OStatus will be supported.

http://daltoncaldwell.com/a-response-to-brennan-novak

[kevinherron]

How can something that just launched be labeled 'mature'?

[primatology]

The idea is that much of the code from Tapbot's mature Twitter client (Tweetbot) was reused.

[DanHulton]

Bought it, have it sitting right above my Tweetbot app.

That said, it really hides the Global stream, and I'm not really cool with that. There's all kinds of good stuff in there.

[thebigkick]

I find my HackerNode app is a much more fulfilling experience.

[lukeholder]

serious yet seemingly silly question: What do i call tweeting in app.net? apping?

[dekz]

posting? Like every other website out there except twitter. I posted on HN, I redditted this cat picture?

[89a]

Twapp.neting