Would You Pay To Use A Social Network?

by Tyron Bache on 21/08/12 at 6:37 am
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Dalton Caldwell thinks so and his service, App.net, has over 11 000 backers who think so as well.

This is something that I have often thought we would get to, social networks that charge. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing, I just imagine feeling weird if I ever had to pull out my credit card before I logged into my Facebook or Twitter account.

As we have seen people love social networks but there is a problem and that problem is advertising as Dalton explains in a post – Announcing an audacious proposal. “As consumers, we are currently given the choice between Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. Oh, and there are also some startups with hand-wavy future advertising business models. All of these services are essentially in the same business: vying for the opportunity to sell you/your clickstream to advertisers.”

Join the Movement at join.app.net from AppDotNet on Vimeo.

App.net’s website explains it’s a different kind of social platform, a service that puts users first. Dalton and his team believe they are creating the service we all wish existed.

I have to say I very much like App.net’s core values and vision, I guess only time will tell whether this becomes the norm or whether this community becomes dormant.

So, would you rather be bombarded with sometimes intelligent yet ultimately unwanted advertising or pay and remove the noisy distractions on your social feed?

Tyron Bache is a proud co-founder of Smashing Web Development, a professional website development company. Tyron is a young and impulsive starter, he loves the web and creating things for it. Tyron also writes about anything that grabs his attention on his personal blog tyronbache.com. View more articles by Tyron Bache.

Tags: social media

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