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Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

joindiaspora.com

11–20 of 64 posts

Re: Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

#11
post #6

It's hard to see this getting traction now, but I'm still glad it exists. Maybe Facebook will somehow fuck up badly enough to push people onto Diaspora, although I can't really see how at this point.

Sadly I think that Google and FB would need to fuck up at the same time (when hell freezes over). All the people I know who avoid FB are proudly on G+, for reasons I don't understand.

http://xkcd.com/918/

Re: Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

#12
post #3

Maybe it's just me that noticed or felt this, but often times a service or product builds up a lot of hype and ends up being vaporware. Diaspora got mainstream attention when Zuckerberg donated money to them and when they complained at the height of Facebook's privacy problems. But then didn't deliver until like a year later? Similar thing happened with Google+. I remember my non-techie friends wanting to get in, but…

Right. When I got my G+ invite after weeks of desire to have a look what it's like, I list interest and I have only 2 posts on G+ till now, last was made 11 months ago.

Not only it was late, it was an utter disappointment. Now, I use Facebook mainly for its Chat - both on mobile and desktop.

Re: Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

#13

I have never thought the Diaspora project would succeed, because it's the social network nobody wants. Honestly I think that in the startup community there has been an enormous failure to understand what makes Facebook so popular. The most important features of Facebook are not the wall, and they're not sharing statuses or links. The most important features of Facebook, are: (1) Chat with a strong mobile app- for man…

The reason Facebook is successful is not because of these features per se, any web dev could implement photos, events, user profile etc. The strength of Facebook is it's user base and the network effect. Everybody's on Facebook because everybody's on Facebook. Now of course, Mark was the first to implement these features well, so that's why he won and by features I mean the stream and photos (events and apps arrived…

The parent was talking about why it got big. Your comment essentially says: "No it wasn't all of those things, it was 'stream and photos' "

Re: Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

#14

I have never thought the Diaspora project would succeed, because it's the social network nobody wants. Honestly I think that in the startup community there has been an enormous failure to understand what makes Facebook so popular. The most important features of Facebook are not the wall, and they're not sharing statuses or links. The most important features of Facebook, are: (1) Chat with a strong mobile app- for man…

The reason Facebook is successful is not because of these features per se, any web dev could implement photos, events, user profile etc. The strength of Facebook is it's user base and the network effect. Everybody's on Facebook because everybody's on Facebook. Now of course, Mark was the first to implement these features well, so that's why he won and by features I mean the stream and photos (events and apps arrived…

It is more truth if it's applied to Twitter. The first versions could be fully implemented in a hackathon and with much less scalability issues.

Re: Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

#15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Facebook is successful is not because of these features per se, any web dev could implement photos, events, user profile etc. The strength of Facebook is it's user base and the network effect. Everybody's on Facebook because everybody's on Facebook. Now of course, Mark was the first to implement these features well, so that's why he won and by features I mean the stream and photos (events and apps arrived…

The parent was talking about why it got big. Your comment essentially says: "No it wasn't all of those things, it was 'stream and photos' "

No the parent can't be talking about why it "got big" because most of those features didn't really exist until it was big.

Re: Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

#16
post #3

Maybe it's just me that noticed or felt this, but often times a service or product builds up a lot of hype and ends up being vaporware. Diaspora got mainstream attention when Zuckerberg donated money to them and when they complained at the height of Facebook's privacy problems. But then didn't deliver until like a year later? Similar thing happened with Google+. I remember my non-techie friends wanting to get in, but…

And when you do deliver the product, don't chase away half the people who show up with stupid, arbitrary, exclusionary restrictions and rules. Because smart people won't dance on your little strings.

Re: Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

#17
post #6

It's hard to see this getting traction now, but I'm still glad it exists. Maybe Facebook will somehow fuck up badly enough to push people onto Diaspora, although I can't really see how at this point.

Sadly I think that Google and FB would need to fuck up at the same time (when hell freezes over). All the people I know who avoid FB are proudly on G+, for reasons I don't understand.

> FB are proudly on G+, for reasons I don't understand.

A couple reasons I've heard/seen:

  * Lots of folks are more trusting of Google with their data than they are of Facebook

  * Somewhat related to the above, circle management is a lot easier to get/use than Facebook's groups, and privacy management tends to be easier on G+ as a result

  * Facebook makes terrible mobile applications and Google+ has the nicest mobile client for a social networking site

Re: Release of Diaspora v0.1.0.0

#19

I have never thought the Diaspora project would succeed, because it's the social network nobody wants. Honestly I think that in the startup community there has been an enormous failure to understand what makes Facebook so popular. The most important features of Facebook are not the wall, and they're not sharing statuses or links. The most important features of Facebook, are: (1) Chat with a strong mobile app- for man…

What makes Facebook successful is exactly the same as what makes HackerNews successful. It is a combination of the illusion of social recognition (getting liked/upvoted) and a variable reward schedule (you never know if there is something new) that makes people type news.ycombinator.com or facebook.com in their address bar whenever they have free time. What you are naming are just features that make Facebook a good tool, but it does not explain why Facebook is so addictive.

It of cause also has everything to do with the network effect. Now if you want to know why Facebook got successful originally that has everything to do with spreading from a small, but well-connected, influential group.

Disclaimer: I used to work for a major European social network, so I know at least partially what I am talking about.

EDIT: Also, making a social network scale is much more difficult then you would think. That is why Friendster failed and this is also part of the reason why we (hyves.nl) failed. Our site was notorious for being slow and when we finally got the problem under control, we already had a bad reputation with the in-crowd. Facebook had both an excellent technical team and the advantage of starting of in a half-open beta.

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