Recently mentions of a new “real-time social feed” called App. net have been creeping into my Twitter feed. Just as the quietly simmering Diaspora and the running joke that is Google+ were geared to seize on collective Facebook malaise, it seems App. net is trying to seize on some degree of unrest among Twitter users before taking on Facebook as well. In this case, App. net promises that “users and developers [will] come first, not advertisers. ” In an era of “if it’s free, you’re the product” — remember that the much love/hated Facebook promise that “[is] free and always will be”— App.... read the full post.

Excerpt/Analysis: I'm not sure I totally buy the "white flight" argument. But looking at the faces of those who've shelled out $50 to join app.net, they definitely are overwhelmingly white and male. I'd add too that they're more than likely tech industry folks. That's all well-and-good, I suppose, right up until part of the point of abandoning Twitter is that the "normals" and their pesky K-Mart ads have arrived. I am really concerned about the future of Twitter, don't get me wrong. But I'm not sure that app.net is the right answer yet. In part it's too soon to tell. And in part it's because it really does look like the white boys club.