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On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

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Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#71

Post by fduran »

jedc wrote: post #59
lukifer wrote: post #35

Does anyone else think that the name "Diaspora" is downright terrible for mass-marketing a new social network? It has a dark connotation for those who know what it means, it's a bizarre word for those who don't, and neither case is particularly "cool", at least to your average joe. And if Diaspora isn't trying to go Facebook-big, what's the point? All that said, I'm still rooting for their core mission. Social networ…

Amazon probably seemed like a ridiculous name when they started out... why would you name an online bookstore after a South American river? But I think they've done okay. Though this only really works if you're doing something orthogonal to the original word and build enough of a brand to make it stick.

According to Bezos' biography he was looking for a name that started with 'A' to rank high in the web portals of the time and also he liked the idea of being 'big'.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#72

Post by dmragone »

lukifer wrote: post #35

Does anyone else think that the name "Diaspora" is downright terrible for mass-marketing a new social network? It has a dark connotation for those who know what it means, it's a bizarre word for those who don't, and neither case is particularly "cool", at least to your average joe. And if Diaspora isn't trying to go Facebook-big, what's the point? All that said, I'm still rooting for their core mission. Social networ…

Could you explain this dark connotation? Having seen it used in publications of varying quality, I have sensed no such thing.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#73

Post by wlesieutre »

jedc wrote: post #59
lukifer wrote: post #35

Does anyone else think that the name "Diaspora" is downright terrible for mass-marketing a new social network? It has a dark connotation for those who know what it means, it's a bizarre word for those who don't, and neither case is particularly "cool", at least to your average joe. And if Diaspora isn't trying to go Facebook-big, what's the point? All that said, I'm still rooting for their core mission. Social networ…

Amazon probably seemed like a ridiculous name when they started out... why would you name an online bookstore after a South American river? But I think they've done okay. Though this only really works if you're doing something orthogonal to the original word and build enough of a brand to make it stick.

And we all remember the reaction when Nintendo announced that the Revolution's official name was "Wii". I still think it sounds silly, but it's no longer weird.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#74

Post by eropple »

dmragone wrote: post #72
lukifer wrote: post #35

Does anyone else think that the name "Diaspora" is downright terrible for mass-marketing a new social network? It has a dark connotation for those who know what it means, it's a bizarre word for those who don't, and neither case is particularly "cool", at least to your average joe. And if Diaspora isn't trying to go Facebook-big, what's the point? All that said, I'm still rooting for their core mission. Social networ…

Could you explain this dark connotation? Having seen it used in publications of varying quality, I have sensed no such thing.

It has pretty common connections to the Jewish Diaspora during and after World War II. While it's not as common a usage as "the Holocaust", among many folks (especially those with a little knowledge of 20th century history), "the Diaspora" refers first to the Jewish one.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#75

Post by neutronicus »

runn1ng wrote: post #14

Sadly, every time I tried Diaspora, not only it was an empty wasteland (I could understand that), but it was feature-wise years behind Facebook and/or Twitter plus it was really slow and buggy. Now I understand that my experience is just not that statistically relevant, but that's what I remember the most from the site - not being able to actually use it is not a good user experience

If they're six years behind Facebook on features, that's perfect.

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#76

Post by decode »

eropple wrote: post #74
dmragone wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain this dark connotation? Having seen it used in publications of varying quality, I have sensed no such thing.

It has pretty common connections to the Jewish Diaspora during and after World War II. While it's not as common a usage as "the Holocaust", among many folks (especially those with a little knowledge of 20th century history), "the Diaspora" refers first to the Jewish one.

The definition I'm familiar with for Jewish Diaspora (which is corroborated by all the Google hits on the first page) is the dispersal of the Jewish people starting in the 6th century BCE. Where do you get the connection to World War II?

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#77

Post by Casseres »

cma wrote: post #45
ktr wrote: post #34

I'm sure it has been discussed elsewhere, but does FB actually earn $5.11 per user? That's amazing to me - I rarely use the site, but even when I am on I don't recall ever clicking an ad. In fact, I don't know many people that have either.

TV makes ~$.20 per user-hour and no one ever clicks an ad.

Not yet they don't...

Re: On Diaspora's Social Network, You Own Your Data

#78

Post by Drbble »

jarin wrote: post #60

Still AGPLed and requires a contributor license agreement before submitting patches? Yeah sorry, but I'm not interested in doing your work for you so you can dual-license it and sell it to companies while I can't make my own proprietary extensions for it. Oh well, back to Facebook.

How is Facebook different?
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