Today, App.Net got funded. Not many of us expected that to happen, but it did, and we’re happy to pay our $50 or $100 to kick it off. Most reports are reporting this service as a paid Twitter clone, and yes, that’s part of it. But the goals are bigger:

• You are not the product: The product in Twitter is you, because it’s free. On App.Net, you are paying for the ID and the service and the access. It’s yours. Your ID. Your Data.
• Low or no Spam: Adding a spam account to Twitter is easy, bots can sign up. If a spammer wants to use App.Net’s platform, they have to pay $50 per account, not a viable business model for them.
• It’s a platform: The real plan for App.Net is to provide a real-time platform for inter-process communications across the web, with tweets being the first cab off the rank. Twitter is all about mass and messages, not as a common carrier.

If you want to reserve your twitter handle, better back App.Net today before funding closes at join.app.net.

You can find me on Twitter at @hiltmon and App.Net at @hiltmon.