Twitter alternative App.net at the end
The ambitious attempt to build a paid Twitter alternative without advertising has finally failed. The App.net service will go offline on March 14, as the developers announced in a blog entry on Friday.
App.net has failed to attract enough users. The service was launched in 2012 after an online campaign raised $750,000 from users. A year later, $2.5 million was added from Internet investors. It also allowed paying customers to invite users for a free version of the service with limited features. However, the revenue remained so low that since 2014 it has only been used to keep the service running technically, without further development.
All user data will be deleted immediately after the closure, it said. The software code of App.net is to be published. The free Twitter is also struggling with its ad-financed model: The short message service, which was launched in 2006, cannot get out of the red and is only growing slowly.
