i really wonder how long the "community" is going to humour these developers. it's really about time we realize that a bunch of people got tricked into giving some students a bunch of money to hack on a fun project over the summer because they were led to believe that it would be something more than it ever was going to be. they failed to produce anything useful, or even a good starting point for a larger project. they have made poor decisions, have been far-from-transparent, and i don't see how anyone in their right mind would want to hop on board and commit a bunch of their time to this project.
is it just the publicity? how long can everyone ride that, and why would anyone with a clue think that's a worthwhile endeavour.
i've read through the developer mailing list and it's a bunch of arguments that essentially boil down to opinions about what this project "should be", and technical discussions by admitted non-experts about topics that are extremely fundamental to the success of this project. with 200K, and a boatload of exposure, they could have spent the summer consulting with experts, planning a viable solution. but they didn't (nor did they ever imply that they would, so no surprise here). i don't mean to sound elitist, but a viable global social networking platform should probably be designed by experts.
i'm not trolling, i'm hoping that people will read this and go "oh yeah, maybe my time could be better spent on other projects", instead of blazing onwards without looking at the big picture.