Developer Release Of Diaspora

[engine]

Developer Release Of Diaspora [joindiaspora.com]

Today we are releasing the source code for Diaspora. This is now a community project and development is open to anyone with the technical expertise who shares the vision of a social network that puts users in control. From now on we will be working closely with the community on improving and solidifying Diaspora.

Earlier News

Diaspora Raises $200,000 [webmasterworld.com]

[wheel]

Facebook is dead. You read it here first.

[ddogg]

What a dumb and pointless project this is, no chance of success whatsoever.

[SEOMike]

I think they are really on to something, especially with Facebook overstepping their bounds with all the privacy intrusions. Zuckerberg is going into several lawsuits which will make him look bad in the press, possibly reveal some "evil", and hopefully push adoption of Diaspora.

[freejung]

The problem is, the migration would have to happen en masse, all at once. It's a great idea, but facebook probably just has too much momentum.

[wheel]

The problem is, the migration would have to happen en masse, all at once. It's a great idea, but facebook probably just has too much momentum.

Facebook can die overnight. Remember myspace? Maybe just old folks remember that :).

The difference here is - and I think a crucial factor - may be the privacy. Early adopters I think care about that. If they can get people onboard due to that, they have a chance.

It's not a sure thing by any means. But the opportunity exists and they have the mechanism in place. Whether it happens is still a lot of luck and marketing.

[ByronM]

I could have sworn the objective of this project isn't to replace facebook, but to supplement all of the social networks as an aggregator/seed type thingy.

[wildbest]

And what's the link of Diaspora with Marchex?

[wheel]

Byron, That does replace facebook :). As soon as it's opensource and available outside facebook dot com, and it takes off, facebook becomes yahoo.

[spinweb]

Maybe it is just me, but I'm sick of these things in general. I'm sick of trying to think of things to post, I'm sick of seeing friends post stuff like "It is a nice day, I think I'll take the kids to the zoo today." One guy I know that I made the mistake of accepting a his friend request posted his crappy poetry daily. Barf.

[wheel]

I'm not sick of it. Never done it. No facebook. No twitter. No myspace. The web is for work and research. Recreation for me is outside. Well, other than posting on forums :).

[J_RaD]

Never done it. No facebook. No twitter. No myspace.

I'm with you.

But im sick of the whole social always in your face 24/7 sharing worthless info, I almost sware social networking is making people a little more stupid each day.

[sheetah]

you fools.

the value of FB lies in having zillions of loyal users.
who cares about what CMS they run ?

Diaspora is like BeOS, ReactOS, Xenix, OS/2 .... they were all good and promising but ended up in a disaster.

[sheetah]

the only news here is these guys raised 200K bucks.

for what, i don't really know, and that's the news to me !
it's just yet another community CMS in PHP/MySQL.

[Color7]

you fools.

the value of FB lies in having zillions of loyal users.
who cares about what CMS they run ?

Diaspora is like BeOS, ReactOS, Xenix, OS/2 .... they were all good and promising but ended up in a disaster.

Actually it's 500 million across the globe. Of which 100 million are duplicate/throw away accounts. That leaves you with 400 million users. Out of those 400 million you may have a few hundred or thousand "loyal" users you're associated with. And, those "loyal" users are ad blind anyway.

Facebook/social media is what AOL was in the 90's.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

A better platform isn't what draws a mob, action on the platform does. In other words a mob draws a mob and facebook is much bigger so people gravitate there. google knows this, that's why they won't put all of their pieces together and say it's on just yet. they want to build up momentum on each piece before launching them into one... you only get one launch.

Building a better site isn't going to be nearly enough to topple facebook.

[freejung]

The moment I realized the power of facebook was when my grandmother joined it. My grandmother is very stereotypical in that she hadn't previously spent more than an hour or so a month on the internet and had barely figured out how to use email. She never tried myspace, even though most of her grandkids were on it for a while.

Now she's on facebook. All. The. Time. That's power.

I would love to see a platform like this succeed, and I agree that it's possible. However, my estimate of the probability is low.

[graeme_p]

@Sheetah

1) Its not polite to call people fools. Most of us learned that when we were about three years old.
2) No one is talking about a CMS.
3) Your list of examples is bad (one could say foolish...). BeOS was killed by Microsoft's deal making (Windows licences cost OEM's more if the offered BeOS), ReactOS has never been completed, Xenix was very widely used until it development fell behind Linux, OS/2 was sold for many years not a huge success, but a profitable product). How is any of these a good parallel?

[walkman]

One guy I know that I made the mistake of accepting a his friend request posted his crappy poetrydaily. Barf.

Surprised you didn't know that about me,
but all i do is sit home
and write my wonderful poetry.


This might have a chance if there's a central user db shared (what can possibly go wrong ! :)) otherwise we have many FB wannabes out there.

[wheel]

This might have a chance if there's a central user db shared (what can possibly go wrong ! :)) otherwise we have many FB wannabes out there.

Actually, I'm thinking that a decentralized database may help things be succesful. I'm thinking more of a torrent kind of system. i.e. I host one of these communities, say those of us with round usernames. Then my platform interfaces with other servers in a torrent kind of fashion.

Then users have choice, and we have hosts being driven to provide innovation.

The chances of success are low due to user inertia, but this one I think (or something similiar) has a better than 0 chance of surviving.

[incrediBILL]

Why would I use a project that has a name that sounds like a diuretic?

Their entire success or failure will rest purely on whether or not they can get Farmville on their service.

[Bewenched]

Gotta do something about the name. Ewww...
How can I raise 200k with a name like that. Heck, even after reading the title and comments I cannot spell it without having to go back and look at it.

[topr8]

>>Gotta do something about the name. Ewww...

got to agree with that!

also i noticed that one of the early comments in this thread has been deleted! (censored probably)

i can't see it succeeding with a name like that - given what it means - as it would alienate half the planet.

[anshul]

Never done it. No facebook. No twitter. No myspace.

That's a nice idea.. may be, be there.. then touch it rare, very rare.

I see Facebook policies and principles are not the nicer ones, they are there for their revenue from advertising and gaming platforms.
How would it anyway helps Facebook users, actually?

Would definitely like to see a better platform with best policies, principles and value for user privacy, user freedom and user security.
Facebook should be the past, if it is not the this.