threads

Threads can be tricky to get your head around, to start with.
But as soon as they’re visualised better, you’ll ‘get it’ straight away.
Check out Treeview, which displays the threads in a more friendly way, so you can see who replied to what.

If you’re interested in this sort of stuff, you could also check out Weft, monkeythread, or hyperthread – some more ways people have experimented with presenting threads in a less ‘flat’ way than most other clients.

Messaging

Recently a new ‘Messaging API’ was released by app.net for developers to play with.

Obviously direct messaging is the immediate thing they started on – and app.net can even do group private messages. The folks at app.net have thrown together a simple open-source site to give devs something to work on – you can access it at omega.app.net
The new messaging protocol isn’t merely a way of sending PMs – there’s a lot more to what it could mean for what you can do with app.net. For more information about what this new functionality could lead to, listen to what @kosso (the dev behind #PAN) and @dalton (on the official app.net podcast) have to say…

Patter

the very clever @duerig created #patter – a way of creating IRC-style chatrooms using app.net. Patter has very recently undergone a big update and redesign, taking advantage of the new messaging protocol thingy. You can use it to manage your PMs and also create public rooms (and private) which can only be read by, or written to, by named people of your choice. Have a look at the site (and ask @duerig if you have any questions) and have a play!
Note: there’s also a Chrome Extension that notifies you of new posts on Patter rooms you’ve subscribed to, and private messages.

Project Amy

This was produced by @stevestreza at the February 2013 #hackathon – it integrates the messaging API with Messages for the Mac. A lot of people got very excited about this Check it out at Steve’s blog

apparchy

Also, from the October 2012 hackathon, is apparchy from @stevestreza again… apparently it allows you to use (some) twitter apps to access your adn stream. Take a look.

Blogging

longposts

a way of blogging with app.net which came out of the October 2012 hackathon… I’ve done a sample post here - go to the main site to start making your own! It’s really simple. If you need help with markdown, click here. The chap that made it, @jazzychad, has made the code open source now so if you like fiddling with that sort of thing, have a go!

blog-app.net

@duerig has also launched a blogging tool which is pretty cool. Go have a look!
btw here’s an example: http://blog-app.net/#2925/172642

WordPress plugin

@thomasmb has built a WordPress plugin which will embed posts and add an app.net widget to your site. If you’re a WordPress user check it out! Also, check this hack for the add to any plugin.  And… @michelelewis has posted a way to create a custom sharing button for WordPress Jetpack users.

tumblr share-to-adn button

have a look here: http://imglr.net/howto/appdotnet-share-button#.UUQhrBzJSSo

widgets

There are quite a few ways you can embed app.net threads onto your website, add a ‘Follow me on app.net’ button or add an app.net contact form.
Check out @ryantharp’s list for a load if them

media

bli.ms

i’d really recommend having a look at what @kosso (the developer of #pan) is doing with bli.ms – it started off as a media hosting site but now that app.net has introduced the ‘files API’ (free web storage, like dropbox), i think he’s moving storage to that and developing bli.ms into a way of managing your app.net media. Several clients give you the option to use bli.ms as your upload service (also imgur etc).

You get your own “my media” page (mine is here for example), and even rss feeds for your uploads

…and here are a few side-projects @kosso has made which use bli.ms:

DESKFACE

Share your beautiful face directly app.net – takes a picture with your webcam and post it to your stream (and straight onto your bli.ms page)… deskface.com

blimshot

a chrome plug-in which lets you take a screenshot of a page, and post the screenshot plus link to your stream…

bli.ms/ketch

browser-based sketchpad…

app.net file manager

You’ve probably heard that app.net subscribers now have access to 10Gb online storage. You can only upload picture files on alpha.app.net, but there’s loads more potential than that. @ludolphus has created a site which will let you have greater control over your files: files-app.net.

vidcast

From the website… “Vidcast is an application that lets you watch and talk about youtube videos at the same time as other app.net users. You can either use it in jukebox mode which lets anyone set the agenda, or one person can act as a DJ, accepting requests from others and picking the ones they want to play”.  Have a go here: http://vidcast-app.net/. It’s a very cool toy, and I think there’s lots more that will come ou tof it. For instance you can create a vidcast room for live youtube events or google+ hangouts and so create an app.net backchannel. You can also use vidcast for soundcloud and vimeo media.

#mondaynightdanceparty

Weekly music vidcast of youtube with @jdscolam (and @33mhz) taking requests. Share your favourite music, discover some new stuff and meet some new people. Monday evening if you’re in America. I’m in the UK so have to get up at 5am to catch the end!
#MondayNightDanceParty now has a website! Go to mndp.tv to watch and chat along… and check out the archive of previously played songs here

#jukebox

You can also contribute to the app.net jukebox… post a youtube link to a music video and use the #jukebox hashtag, and it’ll be added to the queue at http://vidcast-app.net/view

search and discovery

search tools

Some clients have good search tools, some not so much. I use this search tool, myself (this one can search inside the text of profiles etc too).
Also search.256.is is pretty good.

finding interesting stuff/people

mmmercury and topposts

this bot (@mmmercury) delivers a stream of the ‘top’ app.net posts, using some algorithm or other. @topposts does a similar job. basically looks at which posts got the most replies/stars/reposts etc. A good way to find interesting posts and threads that you might otherwise have missed. You can also check the website at mmmercury.com, where there’s an rss subscription option too.

Chatview

Chatview is a client which provides an IRC-like view of the Global stream. Well worth checking out. Speak to @ryantharp for details.

llama project

a new thing hoping to aid people discovery and stuff. early days – have a look! llama.adn.customwebapps.com/

RecentUsers

This site provides a list of the most recently created accounts. If you’re new, this would be a good place to find some others who are exploring too.

Forever Alone?

The lovely @q added a fun feature to his #quickapp webapp – Forever Alone - which lets you find and reply to ‘orphan’ posts, which never got a reply the first time round

notifications

I use ch.eer.io - give it a try if your client isn’t doing what you’d like. It’ll push notifications for @mentions, @replies (even if you’re not mentioned), reposts, follows, unfollows, stars, unstars, and when specific #hashtags are used in a post. Nice. And of course you can now sign up for mention and PM notifications (email ones) at your settings page: https://account.app.net/settings/#notifications

appbox

this is a bit over my head, but AppBox uses IMAP to connect your app.net account to your email inbox. clever stuff. read more here.

succynct

a chrome extension (link to the chrome web store here) that does pop-up notifications and also acts as a client so you can post to (and search) app.net directly from the chrome omnibar thingy, post to app.net from twitter share buttons. pretty cool stuff.

rss feeds

here’s the RSS feed for my posts. for yours, replace @po with your username.
https://alpha-api.app.net/feed/rss/users/@po/posts
Also you can do rss for hashtags: eg for #proustclub it’s https://alpha-api.app.net/feed/rss/posts/tag/proustclub (hat-tip to @jmergy – I first found the hashtag rss on his blog.
Also, @duerig has made a rss feed your personal “my stream”: http://jonathonduerig.com/my-rss-stream/

more cool and interesting stuff

pomoticons

From another very clever person, @cdn – changes your avatar automatically when you use a smiley. whoever thought of this must have been a genius. lab.cdn.cx/pomoticons

adn stats

if you’re interesting in facts and figures about what’s going on in app.net-land right now, adnstats is the place for you!

(there are more stats around, too – check out adn.sys.fm or @adrianus’ analytics page on appnetizens)

reposted.me

See who has reposted or starred your posts: reposted.me

check-in

Not many clients display check-ins, but it is possible to do… have a look at checkin-app.net (speak to @barmstrong for details)

wax.io

wax.io i don’t quite know enough about explain properly (only works in the US so far, i think…) but as far as i can tell it’s a VOIP/skype kind of thing that works using your app.net login.

Question app.net

Create a poll with multiple options. Could be pretty handy! go to questionapp.net

rhetoricus

if you really feel the need to track who is not following you back: rhetoricus.jit.su

App.net Word Cloud

A word cloud generated by posts on Global by the very clever number cruncher @dbasch

Chess!

I like chess. There’s a chess game on here – give it a look: www.apppassant.com. Contact @mattflaschen for more info.

adn memory

a fun memory game using adn avatars… http://adnmemory.flamingow.com/

adn console

“This website gives you an easy interface to the App.net API. First you sign-up using your AppNet account. After sign-up you can use the console to try API queries and see the result in both JSON and rendered views.” http://console-app.net/

dev lite

for budding coders, dev lite “gives you a personal access token that you can use to talk directly with the app.net API. You can use it to hand-craft custom queries or to try out a new client idea before committing to a full developer account.”

salsola

I’m not quite sure where this is going but it’s pretty cool. Another @barmstrong project, Salsola applies tumblr themes to your app.net posts…

heartbeat

somehow uses the messaging api to measure/display how many people are viewing a webpage at any one time: http://bslatkin.github.com/heartbeat/

“Views”

If you’ve just joined, you might have noticed @welcome is following you. People have been worried it’s a spambot, but it’s not – at least not what I’d call a spambot. It’s not going to post to you, and it should (hopefully) unfollow you fairly soon. The ‘Views’ are accounts created by @teawithcarl as a kind of list system (but a bit more than that – have a chat with him about it if you’re interested). There are more Views around (appnet tefam, german speakers, arabic speakers, journalists, developers) – you can look at them and use them here, on @adrianus’ excellent appnetizens site. As I understand it, the idea is that @welcome will auto-follow people when they join, and then unfollow them a bit later – the idea being to have a list of only the last few hundred new people. The other View accounts are run and curated manually, I think it’s only this one that’s doing stuff automatically. Note: I’m probably not explaining this very well but I hope you get the idea. If you’d like to read Carl’s full explanation/manifesto, click here.