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Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

37signals.com

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Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#51

Post by nano81 »

Dysiode wrote: post #23

While the article makes very strong points, it fails to address that Diaspora wasn't seeking attention and merely had attention thrust upon it. Since everyone else seems to be following suit, I'll throw out my two cents worth as well :) Diaspora needs to be exactly what they said it will be. To do that they need to Ignore Everybody ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1350292 ) and stick to their original timeline :…

I think it's naive to think they weren't seeking attention. It's entirely possible they weren't seeking this level of attention, but they reached out to one person (at least) who wrote a story and caused the snowball to start rolling. If they wanted to be stealthy, they would not be giving interviews to the NYT.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#52

Post by rick_2047 »

lionshare wrote: post #50
rick_2047 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the author has ever tried to undermine what diaspora is trying to do in any one word of the short article. What he has tried to tell everyone is what is essentially the best advice those people can ever get. Somebody has to put a reality check on things. I seriously believe that a reality check has to be put on the dream run the diaspora team is getting. Essentially they are getting money just for…

The reality check can be taken one day after the finance period is due. It's not a reality check, it's a deliberate attempt to stop the finance momentum. They have basic specs, and it doesn't look like a rocket surgery (as Steve Krug calls it), certainly not for 4 dedicated CS grads working hard. And although my comments are demoted here, the truth is that distributed "nodes" is a threat to the "central hub" owners,…

If you are paid $170K for this spec http://joindiaspora.com/project.html then it is easy to be rich. There are far too many better things that people can spend there money on. Cool things, even on kickstarter, are going underfunded. After all they just $10000 dollars, what is the need to give a 1730% funding to something.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#53

Post by lionshare »

rick_2047 wrote: post #52
lionshare wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality check can be taken one day after the finance period is due. It's not a reality check, it's a deliberate attempt to stop the finance momentum. They have basic specs, and it doesn't look like a rocket surgery (as Steve Krug calls it), certainly not for 4 dedicated CS grads working hard. And although my comments are demoted here, the truth is that distributed "nodes" is a threat to the "central hub" owners,…

If you are paid $170K for this spec http://joindiaspora.com/project.html then it is easy to be rich. There are far too many better things that people can spend there money on. Cool things, even on kickstarter, are going underfunded. After all they just $10000 dollars, what is the need to give a 1730% funding to something.

1. A common seed stage is 250K-750K and they are currently way below it. Since they are going open source, there is no better way to achieve it.

2. 250K+ for 4 people will give them the opportunity to focus and advance fast without financial side effects.

3. Since when the J. Fried camp is so worried about specs? They want to build a tool to scrape the data, store it local and make it avail. via standard protocol. Nothing to invent, all the tools are in place, but a lot of hard work on the boring integration/config details and testing.

And to the point again: if such thing work I guess it will not be that hard to include a tasks and project management layer that will hurt Basecamp.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#54

Post by rick_2047 »

lionshare wrote: post #53
rick_2047 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are paid $170K for this spec http://joindiaspora.com/project.html then it is easy to be rich. There are far too many better things that people can spend there money on. Cool things, even on kickstarter, are going underfunded. After all they just $10000 dollars, what is the need to give a 1730% funding to something.

1. A common seed stage is 250K-750K and they are currently way below it. Since they are going open source, there is no better way to achieve it. 2. 250K+ for 4 people will give them the opportunity to focus and advance fast without financial side effects. 3. Since when the J. Fried camp is so worried about specs? They want to build a tool to scrape the data, store it local and make it avail. via standard protocol. No…

1) I am not speaking on the behalf of J. Fried. I don't care who that is.

2) I have said that before and will say it again. Sure seeding is way above that. But those seed money go to startups which make money. The VCs make more money off it. Nobody is getting money from this.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#55

Post by lionshare »

shadowsun7 wrote: post #40

> 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. D…

"It's another to get in front of a movement that's predicated largely on hate"

37 signals, Getting real: "Have an enemy - pick a fight": http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Have_an_Enemy.php

Apparently Mr. Fried just picked them both. To his behalf, he picked the right one. In a way, Basecamp is "Facebook for project management", and Diaspora distributed paradigm can threaten both.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#56

Post by lionshare »

rick_2047 wrote: post #54
lionshare wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. A common seed stage is 250K-750K and they are currently way below it. Since they are going open source, there is no better way to achieve it. 2. 250K+ for 4 people will give them the opportunity to focus and advance fast without financial side effects. 3. Since when the J. Fried camp is so worried about specs? They want to build a tool to scrape the data, store it local and make it avail. via standard protocol. No…

1) I am not speaking on the behalf of J. Fried. I don't care who that is. 2) I have said that before and will say it again. Sure seeding is way above that. But those seed money go to startups which make money. The VCs make more money off it. Nobody is getting money from this.

Exactly! We agree here. This is why they succeeded. And this is why the old anti-raising money arguments of J.Fried do not hold. And his "anti-evil" strategy also doesn't work here. So he picks the "no product" PR strategy (again, when Google had a full product, albeit free and competing with Campfire, it was the "evil" PR strategy).

It's a PR to stop a competing trend, a paradigm shift that sooner or later threatens his core business.

His subtext is sorta "listen, don't give them more money because it will spoil them and there will be no product."

I see no other way to start such a project than a few geeks sitting and building it, and nothing will help them more than a few months freedom from financial distractions.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#57

Post by oliverkofoed »

Even if diaspora fails completely, all the investors will have still gotten something else for their money. The fact that diaspora overshoot their initial 10K goal by such a wide margin coupled with all the ensuing publicity the story is getting, is sending a loud and clear signal to Facebook that people are very dissatisfied with the current Facebook direction.

In fact, they're so dissatisfied, that they're willing to put their money where their mouth is, which is a very strong signal to send to Facebook.

Even if diaspora goes nowhere, it might still have a positive impact on Facebook.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#58

Post by rick_2047 »

lionshare wrote: post #56
rick_2047 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I am not speaking on the behalf of J. Fried. I don't care who that is. 2) I have said that before and will say it again. Sure seeding is way above that. But those seed money go to startups which make money. The VCs make more money off it. Nobody is getting money from this.

Exactly! We agree here. This is why they succeeded. And this is why the old anti-raising money arguments of J.Fried do not hold. And his "anti-evil" strategy also doesn't work here. So he picks the "no product" PR strategy (again, when Google had a full product, albeit free and competing with Campfire, it was the "evil" PR strategy). It's a PR to stop a competing trend, a paradigm shift that sooner or later threatens…

I too am against them getting so much money lionshare. As I said before, cool things can happen with the obscene amount of surplus money they have. They asked for $10,000 and thats what they need nothing more nothing less. If they wanted more, they could have asked for it.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#59

Post by chegra »

rick_2047 wrote: post #49
lionshare wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nice comment from Fried blog (by Mark Pesce): "Jesus fscking Christ. What these kids need is a little support, not some idiot tearing them down because they suddenly find themselves in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right idea. Jealous much? If you want to see Diaspora* succeed, then you’d better work very, very hard coming up with solutions to every one of the very real problems y…

I don't think that the author has ever tried to undermine what diaspora is trying to do in any one word of the short article. What he has tried to tell everyone is what is essentially the best advice those people can ever get. Somebody has to put a reality check on things. I seriously believe that a reality check has to be put on the dream run the diaspora team is getting. Essentially they are getting money just for…

The thing about selling the dream is that everybody has a picture in their own minds that makes it exciting. If we were to put actual code to it, it doesn't look like what I had in mind. So, alot of people will then say it's junk.

Now this 37 signal's guy might say hey, the expectations are too high. Yes it is. But like any it is a problem to be solved. Just off the top of my head frequent release of the progress would migitate this risk. Maybe code or Screenshots to manage expectation.

Look at Obama, tons of expectation or any other popular president, did they deliever as expected? No. I think everybody here knows that the presidents aren't going to deliver as expected. So, it is with these guys. With all the hype, people can figure it out. Hey they might not do as well as expected, but we can atleast try to be apart of history.

Re: Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried

#60

Post by lionshare »

rick_2047 wrote: post #58
lionshare wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! We agree here. This is why they succeeded. And this is why the old anti-raising money arguments of J.Fried do not hold. And his "anti-evil" strategy also doesn't work here. So he picks the "no product" PR strategy (again, when Google had a full product, albeit free and competing with Campfire, it was the "evil" PR strategy). It's a PR to stop a competing trend, a paradigm shift that sooner or later threatens…

I too am against them getting so much money lionshare. As I said before, cool things can happen with the obscene amount of surplus money they have. They asked for $10,000 and thats what they need nothing more nothing less. If they wanted more, they could have asked for it.

well, they probably played with some draft code, hooking some libraries, and this is why they asked only 10K. as a summer vacation thing. but they are on something important, the idea is right, the timing is right, and technically feasible. These funds and support are not what they expected - but taking financial distractions out of the equation, they have better chances to do it. It's an interesting thing, and the best thing would be to support them or at least wait before calling it curse.

Question is if you and me will install and use these nodes?

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