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Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

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Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#31

Post by lionshare »

holdenc wrote: post #3

The reason people have donated so much is because they are upset with Facebook's new privacy policies. How diaspora can succeed: do the same thing Facebook does, but fix the privacy. How diaspora can fail: by making some pie in the sky social networking platform that will elude most non-technical people. Unfortunately, it sounds like it's going this direction. I truly want to see Diaspora work. And it doesn't have to…

A Diaspora project management plug-in is a Basecamp killer, and J. Fried (=J. Afraid) knows it. What is Facebook? A central hub. What is Basecamp? a central hub.

He did succeed to kill google chat client to make us pay for Campfire. But it was easy PR against "evil" Google. This time it will not work.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#32

Post by bandushrew »

lionshare wrote: post #29

It's not Jason Fried it's Jason AFRAID. Because sooner than later we will see plug-ins that enable distributed project management. As these guys say, we don't need a centralized hub for social network. We also don't need one for projects (Basecamp). It's the Campfire story again: Than he had an echo against "evil" Google. but what can he say to a few nice guys going open source? If Mr. Fried didn't roll his campaign…

That really seems like a stretch, whatever you think about Diaspora, every point he made is absolutely right. They have no code, they have 000's of people watching them and they have 4000+ people who believe they should have a say in the development process. If someone asked me up front which I would prefer to work with, 200k in money and 4000+ who all have a 'right' to be involved and their hand on a different piece of the elephant, or neither of the above....The answer would be easy. That equation would be hugely different if I had released something already and those 4000+ people had their expectations driven by that....

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#33

Post by lionshare »

bandushrew wrote: post #32
lionshare wrote: post #29

It's not Jason Fried it's Jason AFRAID. Because sooner than later we will see plug-ins that enable distributed project management. As these guys say, we don't need a centralized hub for social network. We also don't need one for projects (Basecamp). It's the Campfire story again: Than he had an echo against "evil" Google. but what can he say to a few nice guys going open source? If Mr. Fried didn't roll his campaign…

That really seems like a stretch, whatever you think about Diaspora, every point he made is absolutely right. They have no code, they have 000's of people watching them and they have 4000+ people who believe they should have a say in the development process. If someone asked me up front which I would prefer to work with, 200k in money and 4000+ who all have a 'right' to be involved and their hand on a different piece…

I think it's not. It's not the "product". On the Campfire issue he fought against Google's fully baked and ready product. Since he can't stick "evil" to these guys, he took another PR strategy TO SPOIL FURTHER MONEY IN.

As a "central hub" owner he has a strong interest here.

Diaspora barrier will be for non geeks, to install and configure the "nodes". But since many of his customers are geeks, they will have no trouble to switch.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#34

Post by bartl »

What a Facebook killer needs most, is users. Diaspora has none, as it doesn't yet exist.

There already are other social networks that have plenty of users, but not enough to be a Facebook killer: Orkut (remember that? Apparently still big in Brazil, currently 100 million active users worldwide according to Wikipedia) and NetLog (big in Europe at 65 million users).

No matter how much traction Diaspora gets, I think it cannot possibly beat those.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#35

Post by holdenc »

jamiequint wrote: post #15
holdenc wrote: post #3

The reason people have donated so much is because they are upset with Facebook's new privacy policies. How diaspora can succeed: do the same thing Facebook does, but fix the privacy. How diaspora can fail: by making some pie in the sky social networking platform that will elude most non-technical people. Unfortunately, it sounds like it's going this direction. I truly want to see Diaspora work. And it doesn't have to…

"How diaspora can succeed: do the same thing Facebook does, but fix the privacy." What is the definition of success here though? A super-niche social network that privacy-geeks use? The idealism is understandable but misguided. These guys won't touch Facebook by trying to make a social network with a feature better at X - in this case privacy - thats not how giants get toppled. Facebook won social networking, Google…

I disagree here. Facebook did a few things incrementally better than its prior contemporaries. Remember when Friendster and MySpace had more users than Facebook? Facebook won social networking because it essentially fixed a few problems that plagued its competitors. MySpace was/is a mess. And Friendster was too self-serious (forcing you to post a personal photo instead of an avatar) and restrictive. And both MySpace and Friendster got privacy wrong from the get go. One of Facebook's earliest appeals was the privacy it allowed users.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#36

Post by sutro »

patio11 wrote: post #28
jimmyjim wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone such as you, a technical person, is unwilling to take the initiative in signing up for it, then it's really just a self-defeating prophecy, isn't it? My point is, adopting a creed of proactivity is for the good of us all.

You mean self-reinforcing in this case, since saying this is going to fail makes it more likely to fail. Would you like me to lie to you? I'm good at lying. This project is going to wildly succeed because it solves a major pain point for millions of people. They will deliver technically impressive software, like most people right out of school do. It will naturally take less than three months. It will be so easy to h…

Bingo!

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#37

Post by ThomPete »

wmf wrote: post #9
bkbleikamp wrote: post #4

I think another issue is their solution to the problem is flawed. Most users don't have a desire or the ability to run their own server. Running a basic application on a web server seems trivial to nerds, but to average users it seems impossible.

Running a Unix machine in your pocket also seems impossible—oh wait, 100 million sold you say? You just need to unlearn what you have learned.

The Unix machine have been packaged in such a way that the user don't know it or care what it is running on. Everyone knows how to buy something.

That seems rather different here where users are asked to do things that in them selves are not obvious. The users don't know how to download a node and the idea that someone you trust is going to run the node for you just isn't a very convincing idea IMHO.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#38

Post by iamclovin »

I agree with more-or-less with Jason Fried. It's easier to succeed when expectations are low and you exceed expectations. I guess the more money you raise, the more the expectations are, and hence it's difficult to exceed them.

Then again, it's not Diaspora guys' fault that the press seem to have taken to them as saviours of the world.

On a related note, @jacobian has predicted Diaspora to be the new Chandler :) http://twitter.com/jacobian/status/14120142558

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#39

Post by lionshare »

blackguardx wrote: post #20

$170K isn't that crazy. Since when do programmers have to do the whole starving artist routine to get respect? Living close to the edge doesn't make you work any better. If it did, you would have to question companies like Google who give their employees really good benefits. $170k split four (or more) ways actually doesn't sound like much, especially when you consider their location (NYC), and their massive student…

Agreed. They can get more. The whole idea of this nasty post is to say 170K is enough. They should reach a decent first seed round cap

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#40

Post by shadowsun7 »

> Expectations are too high

Jason's third point is, I feel, the strongest. People aren't contributing to Diaspora because of Diaspora, they're contributing as an act against Facebook. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing. It's one thing to get in front of a movement and ride that to success. It's another to get in front of a movement that's predicated largely on hate. Diaspora would have to turn this into something positive (Internet users for privacy!) as opposed to just letting the anti-FB vibe run its course.

PS: not related, but here's a thought: why is it necessary to have a special node system? Won't a super-simple, super-private social network work just as well? Facebook's problems isn't so much with the tech as it is with the company philosophy - they seem to want to do everything in their power to screw you over for their benefit. Change the philosophy and Facebook becomes a much harder target to hit.

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