The crux is how you define "critical mass". Dalton originally defined it as 10k users. He basically said that with 10k users you can have an interesting Twitter-like service.
Others are quick to point out that it will never reach Twitter-scale. There will never be a point where 90% or probably even 50% of the people you think matter on Twitter today are on ADN.
It's pretty clearly destined to be somewhere in between, and the question becomes what utility can you get out of that? Obviously the breadth of Twitter's firehose data is off the table, but you also have a lot higher signal to noise ratio, the benefits of a smaller community, and a practical means to fend off the Eternal September.
Can ADN be useful without ubiquity? I'm hoping to test the theory that finding the right 200 people to follow on ADN will give me everything I got from Twitter and more, even if they are not the 200 most interesting people on Twitter.
Others are quick to point out that it will never reach Twitter-scale. There will never be a point where 90% or probably even 50% of the people you think matter on Twitter today are on ADN.
It's pretty clearly destined to be somewhere in between, and the question becomes what utility can you get out of that? Obviously the breadth of Twitter's firehose data is off the table, but you also have a lot higher signal to noise ratio, the benefits of a smaller community, and a practical means to fend off the Eternal September.
Can ADN be useful without ubiquity? I'm hoping to test the theory that finding the right 200 people to follow on ADN will give me everything I got from Twitter and more, even if they are not the 200 most interesting people on Twitter.