On.com: When a Million Users Isn't Enough

On.com was an ambitious social media platform that aimed to combine the best elements of Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr into a single, cohesive experience. I joined as a mobile developer during the growth phase, helping build features that would eventually attract over a million users. Despite the traction, the company ultimately couldn't find a sustainable business model—a cautionary tale about the gap between user growth and business success.

The Platform

On.com differentiated itself through a unique content format:

Mixed Media Posts:

• Text, images, and video in single posts
• Rich formatting options beyond typical social apps
• Inline link previews with custom styling
• GIF support before it was ubiquitous

Discovery Features:

• Topic-based feeds beyond just followers
• Trending content algorithms
• Cross-platform content embedding
• Real-time activity streams

Social Features:

• Follow/follower model
• Reposts and quote posts
• Threaded conversations
• Direct messaging

Technical Implementation

The mobile apps needed to handle the complexity of mixed media while maintaining performance:

iOS App (Objective-C):

• Custom layout engine for mixed media posts
• UIKit Dynamics for physics-based interactions
• Efficient image loading and caching
• Background upload queue for media
• Push notification handling with deep linking

Feed Performance:

• Virtualized list rendering
• Predictive content prefetching
• Image size negotiation based on network
• Smooth 60fps scrolling with complex cells

Real-Time Features:

• WebSocket connections for live updates
• Optimistic UI updates
• Conflict resolution for concurrent edits
• Notification coalescing

Growth and Scale

On.com achieved impressive growth metrics:

• 1M+ registered users at peak
• 100K+ daily active users
• Millions of posts created
• Featured in App Store multiple times

The engineering team scaled the backend and apps to handle this growth:

• Horizontal scaling of API servers
• CDN integration for media delivery
• Database sharding for user data
• Real-time infrastructure for notifications

Why It Failed

Despite strong user metrics, On.com couldn't build a sustainable business:

Monetization Challenges:

• Advertising revenue couldn't cover infrastructure costs
• Users resistant to promoted content in feeds
• Premium features didn't convert enough users
• Brand partnerships were difficult to scale

Competition:

• Twitter and Instagram were entrenched
• New features were quickly copied by larger platforms
• User acquisition costs increased dramatically
• Retention was challenging against established networks

Market Timing:

• Social media market was consolidating
• Investors became wary of new social platforms
• The "next Facebook" thesis was losing credibility

Lessons Learned

On.com taught me important lessons about product development:

Users ≠ Revenue: A million users means nothing without a path to monetization. Growth metrics can mask fundamental business model problems.

Platform Risk: Building on others' platforms (even the open web) creates dependencies. Social apps live or die by network effects that are nearly impossible to bootstrap.

Technical Excellence Isn't Enough: The apps were well-built, performant, and feature-rich. None of that mattered when the business couldn't sustain itself.

Timing Matters: On.com might have succeeded in 2010 or might succeed in 2025. In 2014, the social media market had already consolidated around a few winners.

While On.com ultimately shut down, the experience of building a product used by a million people was invaluable. The technical challenges of scale, the product decisions around social features, and the hard lessons about business fundamentals have shaped my approach to every project since.