Back in April, the App.net app Riposte was removed from sale. Riposte wasn’t just the best client for App.net; I think it held its own against even the best Twitter apps, too. The push notification server for Riposte (and its messaging app complement, Whisper) was to keep running for some months and then shut down this summer.
Even if App.net is slowly fading away, like many users I still have Riposte on my home screen. I cross-post all my microblog posts from this blog to App.net. When I get replies and mentions on App.net, I like to see them as push notifications in Riposte. I can reply in the app easily, or skim through the timeline to see what else is going on.
Now the developers have launched a crowdfunding campaign to keep the Riposte server running. Their goal is a modest $500 per year to cover AWS hosting and time to keep everything running smoothly. Even if you’re not very active on App.net anymore, consider donating as a thank-you for everything Riposte did for App.net, and for what it did to advance the state of UI design in social networking apps.
