A special message for the App.net community

Hi, everyone. I wanted to put up a special post just for the ADN community. This is not visible from my blog, only from the link on ADN.1 This one's for you.

Do you remember what App.net was like when it first began? Do you remember the excitement, the sense of community, the friendliness, the respect 2 on all sides?

Do you remember when the founders used to post and interact with us? When they were actively developing the place?

Yeah, I do, too. There hasn't been much of that on ADN lately. There hasn't been much of anything there lately.

I've missed it. It just hasn't been as much fun. And ever since the State of the Union post, the membership has been quietly slipping away. It's now common for an hour or three to slip by without anything new in my stream. It's weird.

And then there's the slowdown in the entire service. Cracks are starting to appear, things are slowing down, and while Berg is fixing stuff when it breaks, there's a difference between proactive maintenance and fixing stuff after the fact. This place is still alive, but it's anything but healthy.

Seems like we've all been looking for the new App.net. A few people have declared their intention to build it.

One of them has succeeded.

Right now, there's a small and growing community of ADNers (current and former) at 10Centuries.org, built by our very own @matigo. It's based on the same principles that ADN was--no advertising, paid membership available, mutual respect, and owning your own data. This time, there are no VCs involved to pressure the owner into compromising the service. If you check it out, I think you'll find it impressive. And you can blog and do podcasts there, too.

I like it so much I'm spending most of my social media time there, which brings me to the reason for this post.

There's not much keeping me on App.net these days, and while I'm not deleting my account, I won't be around as much. I'll be checking in periodically, but irregularly. I've already turned off notifications and PMs. At some point, I'll probably delete Riposte and Chimp.

ADN will always be special to me, because it's where I met so many of you wonderful and fascinating people. There comes a time, though, when you have to acknowledge that once was is no more. And that's OK--that's how life works. And this is a part of my life--a bigger one than I ever thought a social network could be.

I hope you'll join me over at the new place. I think you'll like it. If you'd like an invite code, just ask--you can reach me at larryanderson.org/contact.

Thanks for listening.

All the best,

Larry

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  1. This was true of the original post on Posthaven, but the copy here is visible globally.

  2. For the most part, certain individuals who shall remain nameless notwithstanding.