What are your thoughts on ADN? Worth checking out? Will it someday replace Twitter?

I guess it will die as it keeps this form, the majority of people won't pay for a twitter-alternative. And that's the reason that even I (being a too-early-adopter) won't pay for it, because I think it has no potency.

Hi :-) So far ADN is still in its early stages. There are still a lot of features missing you'd find at Twitter (push notifications come to mind but that is currently being worked on) and it is rather niche right now.

The initial "marketing" if you will was focused purely on developers and you can definitely tell.

For me personally the incentive here is to see the story either to an end or to see it come to fruition. It's just nice to see the development going on there in such an open manner.

Will it replace Twitter? Depends. I'm pretty sure there is room for a paid and a free tier of Social Networks. If ADN and Twitter will be the big players here is yet to be decided.

I think it's an ideal system to not sell data, but I also know they must be hitting a plateau of people joining because of the price break. It's like the old days of twitter: I don't know anyone!

I'm personally really curious what the price per year for ADN will end up at. It has to be low enough not to scare people off while being high enough to keep the trolls out ;-)

I just signed up last week after the price drop and Netbot for iOS being released. I don't have any friends on it yet, but several of the people I follow on Twitter have really started using it. The lack of spam and ads is so refreshing.

I believe there will have to be several price drops before a lot of people really jump in.

@Aaron That was one hell of a time, indeed!
@Horst (latest post) That's interesting, if it will end up somewhere between $15 per year and $0,99 per month I think it will get more users, and than I would definitely try it. Also a good reason to not join is the point that the prices are getting low every now and than.

Furthermore, I don't mind twitter selling my data, as I do not post anything I would not like to be sold or found by any employer. But I hate the new API restrictions.

@Raimond Personally I don't mind the $30 per year but it will definitely put enough people off :-/ Regarding data being sold: That's actually not even my problem with Twitter and services like Google+ but that first features are added for advertisers and perhaps after thinking about for 50 times new consumer level features (that are actually useful) are implemented.

The tough part is the cost of entry. $5 a month to try it and then another $5 for Appbot. Then if I don't like ADN, I'm out $10. I wish there was a cheaper way to try it, but I get why it's something they charge for. I won't buy an app until I commit to ADN, which I'm not sure I'll do as of yet.

@Horst I would pay $30 too, if more people would use it (especially more Dutch people). The function dilemma is a good one, maybe a nice one for branch is: for every new function for advertisers, there should be at least two new functions for users?

@Aaron... No one asked you to buy a paid ADN client. Rivr is for free and has notifications too... As for all of you comparing it to be just a twitter clone, think about the major differences. There are many. Twitter is really trying to become a Facebook clone right now. Is that the way you'd want it to go?

@Nitin, I agree and that's why I installedshrtmsg, Rivr, and Appnet Rhino on my phone. But, let's face it: Appbot is the best because Tweetbot is awesome. You know that's the app to beat for all developers.

@Raimond... If you join now and the price goes down, you don't loose your money, you get an extended period of subscription... Also, calling it a no-potency twitter alternative is like calling twitter useless. Yes, it's useless. The third party apps make it useful. Twitter is killing all third parties, ADN is promoting them...

@Aaron... Yes, I've heard a lot about Appbot. But in the interest of not paying for it, I chose to go with Rivr and believe me, I'm not missing out on anything. Push notifications, special features like image and music status uploads... Appbot is just familiar to use, that's why people are pining for it. Besides, if you go for the yearly sub, it turns out to be a lot cheaper for you...

@Nintin, didn't know that. I will consider joining when I have money again.. The potency-problem is based on the pay-wall. It will be a lot less of a problem when App.net will be cheaper. I normally would say that they should consider a free-ad-based version. But that's off the board I guess.

@Aaron, I just wanted to correct, it is Netbot from Tapbots, didn't want to confuse anyone. And yes, it is a really awesome app.

And everybody here, I'm sorry for the bad English. One of my reasons to use branch (besides that it's awesome, and me being an early adopter) is learning English. So I hope it doesn't annoys you guys to much.

@Raimond I'd keep paying for it just to keep the ads and spam out.

@Raimond You're doing a better job with English than a lot of people I know and it's their first language.

@Jon (first post) Mmm, the pay-wall might be the best anti-spam solution I heard off.. Maybe it isn't that bad after all.

@Jon (second post) Thanks!

Something else that I really like about ADN is that there is a checkbox in your profile to see all the posts in a discussion and not just the ones by people you are following. Twitter had that initially IIRC but once it gained traction, for some reason, that option got removed.

Depending on what people you follow, this is a really nice feature :-)

What makes Twitter so appealing right now is its mass-adoption. But sadly they seem to go more in the direction of becoming a media-house than to improve the actual core service. This worked out so well for Yahoo! back in the days ...

@Horst yep indeed, that was fine. But it's acceptable that you can see the discussion in one click now.

I personally think that Twitter will go in the Facebook direction, you don't like it that much anymore, you'd want to leave. But you don't because everybody is using it and you don't want to miss it.

@Raimond I left Facebook back in February. I went back and forth for a while, but decided it was time to cut the cord... Haven't looked back once. I am getting closer to that point with Twitter now that I'm on ADN.

@Jon one of the things Facebook did right was building alliances with other web apps. For instance, the only reason I still have an account there is because of Spotify... that and using their messenger service once per year ;-)

With Twitter this might be one of the directions they are heading right now, not that this is all that compatible with their 4-sectors-diagram, but anyway.

@Jon You're one of the few that I know that really cut the cord, and it's nice to see people doing that. I personally don't see me doing that, it's to important as the way to communicate with me friends (both local and in other countries). But I said that about the Dutch social network Hyves in the past.

So, I think when the time is right, and there is an alternative people will cut the cord and go to the next network. And that time might come for Twitter and Facebook. For Twitter, App.Net (I don't get the APN acronym) may be the succeeder. We will see that in the coming year(s) I guess.

Whatever will be the outcome, there is going to change a lot on the internet, and we are part of it. :)

I've been on ADP for about a week I think. I enjoy it because there's serious and productive conversation as well as some goofing around.
I don't know that I'll continue paying for the service though because it seems a little strange paying to update my status.
I've also looked at tent.is since it's a free alternative. It's still in a growing phase as well and is a bit different since it's a protocol.
Who knows where all of these services end up. If anything, at least we can say we participated.