[mechanical_fish]

I would pay one thousand dollars a year to join a social network of only twenty people… if they were the right twenty people.

(And they actually used the network. That's always the trick. Renting the venue is easy, inviting the people is easy, but will they actually show up?)

As someone on App.net itself was pointing out yesterday, the current vibe is basically that of an industry conference: A bunch of people with vaguely-aligned interests hang around in a room swapping small talk. Such conferences are much more valuable in person than online, of course, but in person they're worth hundreds to thousands of dollars for a few days. $50 per year is a steal.

But, again, the people you want to talk with have to show up. We shall see how the conversation evolves.

[podperson]

But here's the thing -- will the twenty people you want on your perfect network be willing to pay $50/year to be on it and make your network perfect?

Bear in mind that each of them has 20 people they want on THEIR perfect network.

"The internet treats cost as damage and routes around it."

I think the key trick would be creating a "free" network that lets you pay (a very small amount) for key niceness, e.g. freedom from ads and spam. Even better, take an existing free service and piggyback a paid service on top of it that adds useful value. (I'm thinking here of email where you pay $0.01 to send a message per Bill Gates's excellent idea for eliminating most spam.)

[egonschiele]

Out of curiosity, what are the right 20 people for you? All the people I can think of are already on Twitter, Facebook or G+...and I don't see them talking to me more because I'm on App.net.