Sick of tired of Facebook and its hyper-targeted ad network? The team at App.net recently announced an ad-free alternative, and their developer friendly network became an immediate success thanks to its own Kickstarter type fundraising effort.
The network asks potential users to pay $50 for a one-year membership at which point they receive “real-time social feeds without ads.”
The company’s Kickstarter asked for $500,000 and now, with 15 hours left to go, it has raised $705,050 thanks to the donations of 10,771 backers.
Founder Dalton Caldwell says he decided to launch the network because ads and spam had begun to ruin Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. By eliminating ads all together, spam can be reduced if not removed completely, allowing users to focus on their social connections and not the junk that comes along with them.
As Dalton explains, by selling a service to customers App.net’s only job is to please its users and not cater to advertisers. Dalton promises the website will NEVER be ad supported, and, therefore, the entire company will be aligned with making the most innovative and fun product it can create with the help of a strong developer base centered around its strong API.
To raise money, App.net is offering some nice perks for users and developers. According to the Kickstart page the following incentives are given:
$50 – App.net Member Tier · 8,521 backers
You will be committing to pre-paying a full year of “member” tier service. You will be able to “claim” your current Twitter username before the project deadline passes -OR- request any preferred username. Preferred usernames will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis if this funding is successful.
$100 – App.net Developer Tier · 2,190 backers
All of the aforementioned “member” features, as well as access to the entire App.net developer toolchain which includes API key generation, documentation, an API analytics dashboard, and the developer feedback and support community.
$1000 – App.net Pro Tier · 60 backers
All of the “developer” tier access tools, phone support, and a personal meeting with Dalton in San Francisco.
Here’s a video of Dalton Caldwell talking about why he is creating App.net:
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