Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records • Hacker News Board

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#111

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, May 13, 2010, 8:11 PM UTC

andymoe wrote: post #102

jacquesm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At their age? Not a whole lot. But then again, Zuckerberg was about that age when he built the first version of facebook. It's not rocketscience. The problem is, there is facebook now. And that sets the bar pretty high. Going up against the proverbial 800 pound gorilla makes for a great story but it will probably end in some squashed egos. The book rights will be worth something though :) Just like duck-duck-go isn't…

What they are proposing is significantly more difficult than what Facebook initially wrote. Facebook, at one point, was just another web app with a nice story for bootstrapping new users via the college networks. These guys are trying to build a distributed, secure, encrypted network on which to build social networking functionality. If they do it correctly it could be the basis for a whole lot more. And even if they…

Well, GPG is fairly mature, and so is the BitTorrent protocol, which Bram Cohen launched at ~25. they're ambitious to be sure, but the basic concept is not that far out.

Anyway, they now have enough money to hire a competent programmer or two if they get stuck :)

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#112

Post by rue » Thu, May 13, 2010, 8:16 PM UTC

bcardarella wrote: post #7

This is going to be the most overhyped and underwhelming web project ever. This entire group looks like they have vaporware written all over them.

I will be highly impressed if the project produces anything.

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#113

Post by inmygarage » Thu, May 13, 2010, 8:26 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #12

Rats -- someone here said, "I'd be worried if I was kickstarter at this point...", and as I went to reply to that, they deleted their comment. But it's spot-on. Short term, this is going to bring a lot of publicity and attention towards kickstarter, and that will also benefit the projects on there. If you'd like to launch something via kickstarter, now is the time to do it . Because, odds are, what these guys roll ou…

I disagree. For Kickstarter, I think this is what the "Paris Hilton cell phone hack" was for Digg. It has proved their model and their platform and will mainstream their service. Only good things for them - I actually think Kickstarter is the big winner in this entire situation, Diaspora is now saddled with sadly unreasonable expectations.

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#114

Post by PhrosTT » Thu, May 13, 2010, 8:27 PM UTC

the upshot to all this publicity is they'll get some competent advisors since they're now over their head for college frosh.

also they should probably take a year off and move somewhere other than NYC (unless proximity to help is worth the rent).

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#115

Post by canadaduane » Thu, May 13, 2010, 8:55 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #106

canadaduane wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is an outlier outcome achieved by people who are initially indistinguishable from the insane.

That is just plain poetic. Did you come up with that yourself ?

I'm glad it's "plain poetic" and not "plain pathetic" (as I initially read that sentence!) Thanks. Yes, it's my own.

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#116

Post by papachito » Thu, May 13, 2010, 9:01 PM UTC

Their github repositories are unimpressive to say the least http://github.com/danielgrippi http://github.com/rsofaer http://github.com/maxwell

Judging by their open source activities, they are not people I'd give $100k to.

I've seen much more impressive repositories from students.

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#117

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 13, 2010, 9:39 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #35

mrduncan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really isn't any motivation to shut it down now though as far as I can tell. It seems like they're getting money with essentially no strings attached - might as well get it now while it's easy to get.

That's true. But they would come over a lot more credible (at least to me, that may be different for others). I you've misjudged your initial funding requirement by more than 10:1 you are already showing that you've done something wrong, so since they've received what they said they needed the logical next step would be to put up some proof they can deliver. Like that expectations stay within the realm of the feasibl…

[deleted]

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#118

Post by QNguyen » Thu, May 13, 2010, 9:40 PM UTC

So I'm wondering - should they keep this a summer project or just take a leave of absence from school and give this project their full attention?

100k is some serious seed money.

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#119

Post by mkramlich » Thu, May 13, 2010, 9:45 PM UTC

What I don't understand about Diaspora is why can't one guy just start hacking out his own "distributed Facebook" replacement today. No team needed (not at start.) No money needed. Use F/OS/OTS software, all the pieces are just laying there. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if there were already several people out there doing exactly this already, but without the PR splash made by Diaspora.

Ok, maybe I've just answered my own question. It's only about the PR splash!

Re: Diaspora breaks $100k and all of Kickstarter's records

#120

Post by SkyMarshal » Thu, May 13, 2010, 9:49 PM UTC

QNguyen wrote: post #118

So I'm wondering - should they keep this a summer project or just take a leave of absence from school and give this project their full attention? 100k is some serious seed money.

Leave of absence I'd say. 3months may be enough to build the basic infrastructure before turning it over to the open source community, but the odds of Diaspora succeeding in the long run will be significantly better if its guided by the people who created and live it as long as possible. Thinking of Linux as the model.