zlacker

>>aculve+(OP)
The reason I think App.net is going to grow is NOT because it doesn't have ads or that the "users are not the product", etc. It's because the community it hosts will be so tightly grouped around a similar, passionate interest: tech startups. Requiring payment, being called "App.net" (they'll be tempted to change this), and being distributed via word of mouth amongst the segregated tech startup community, will prevent so many different types of people from using it. This is all a great thing and I bet there will be opportunities for other "Twitter for ________" ventures. Charging for a service like this that caters to a much smaller market makes it sustainable.

Congrats to Dalton and all involved. This is one of the most interesting and courageous internet projects in recent time.

>>eoghan+J6
I don't see how "Twitter for _______" is a good idea. I can make "Twitter for _______" by following the right people. The idea that Twitter's user base is too broad doesn't make any sense to me.

>>natriu+c7
You can only follow "the right people", but they'll still talk about things you're uninterested in. In addition, you'll also have people following you who have different interests, who will start irrelevant conversations with you.

Why does Hacker News exist? And other special interest web forums, Facebook groups, mailing lists? Who do interest groups hold meetups? People with shared interests get MASSIVE value from highly focused gatherings and conversations. And Twitter right now is anything but focused.

>>eoghan+O7
What's going to prevent people using app.net from talking about things you don't care about? There is nothing that forces you to only talk about tech and related, as far as I can tell. The reason this doesn't happen on HN is because the topics are agreed on and moderated.

>>karpat+Db
In general there are 3 solutions involving 'moderation':

1) self moderation: Google Plus has circles which you can theoretically use to share specific topics only with circles that you know to be passionate about them. Requires manual work to setup the right circles and people rarely do it.

2) manual moderation: Hacker News uses pg's time and some admin/moderator supervision to trim unwanted topics. Requires manual work which expands proportionally with the community's size if no automation is used.

3) automatic moderation: HN's flag system and community moderation (voting, Slashdot karma) seem to work relatively well, but they've been used until now predominantly to "rank" good comments to the top as opposed to "clustering" online communities into "sub-reddits" with focused interest groups.