Partly due to the recent uproar about Twitters rule changes there’s a new social network in town (well, it’s thinking about moving in) called App.net.

The underlying concept is simple: it is an open, ad-free social network leveraging open source and APIs. According to this post on Dalton Caldwells’ blog, users will pay for the service instead of it being purely ad driven - although it’s possible there will be a free tier which is purely ad driven.

This is an interesting proposition and asks the question: How important are these systems to you? If you are willing to pay some money for a service then you probably thinks its pretty important, the more important it is the more money you are likely willing to pay for its service. However, it’s a bit chicken and egg. If this is a new service then you have no idea what the value proposition is. App.net is $50 for a years usage. Is that value for money? I don’t know because there is no way to sample the service. Additionally none of my friends are (currently) using the site. At this time its not an attractive proposition. Whats slightly worse is that if I want to develop for the system then thats $100 although the API spec is freely available.

There is already quite a list of apps under development for this system and for me this rings some alarm bells. There’s a lot of very similar apps being developed. I’m not convinced that this is a good thing for a fledgling system. To help gain initial traction I think there needs to be an official app set which shpws off the fundamental system at its best. Allow that to mature for a while and then add in the third party eco-system to allow people to extend and embrace the system. On the other hand, cream generally rises to the top. Just as with all of the Twitter clients out there a few have raised themselves above the rubbish and are very polished, highly respected, and with large user bases.

For the moment I am undecided as to whether to join this new eco-system, but I will sit back and watch it with some interest…