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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

#51

Post by ef4 »

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…

I don't sense any dark connotation for the word. I've seen it used most often in a pretty value-neutral way to describe any group of people living outside their country of origin. These days most diaspora are composed of economic emigrants who have left their homelands voluntarily in search of opportunity.

It's also the title of a very good science fiction novel that I would say treats the word without negative connotations.

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

#52

Post by shmerl »

fusiongyro wrote: post #10
Estragon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most social activity generates no revenue. It's tragic that we are moving towards a society which sees every relationship as mediated by economic utility.

That's reading a bit much into it. We are talking about a business here, even if their product deals with social activity.

It shouldn't be a business. It should be a sustainable project. The moment you make it a business, it looses its core value - "by users, for users". That said, the project needs to sustain development and growth of course. The difference is in the goal. Business' goal is to make money, and it's driven by for profit reasons. Such kind of project's goal should be to make a good (user oriented, privacy protecting and so on) social network, and it should be driven by that reason.

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

#54

Post by Avshalom »

gecko wrote: post #43

I don't get the fascination with Diaspora. StatusNet is distributed, open, easy to set up, established, and extensible, and already has a large number of users (e.g. on identi.ca). What does this bring to the table? Newness?

Diaspora:Facebook::StatusNet:Twitter

At least near as I can tell without signing up.

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

#55

Post by onedognight »

fromhet wrote: post #29
darksaga wrote: post #25

I'm actually glad they are continuing on and fighting the stigma of the "best social network that never was". I have used Diaspora's site for a while and prefer it to Facebook and Google+. The problem is trying to maintain three separate social networks. Since most of the people I like to keep up with are on FB and G+, my use of Diaspora has slowed down over the past year or so.

What kind of people use G+? Only times I visit is when linked, and it's often some OSS-guru who has written something there but I dont ever use it, nor does anyone I know, not even remotely.

> What kind of people use G+?

Google Hangouts, while being buggy as hell and locking up constantly (at least on OS X), are still unrivaled in the video chat / desktop sharing space.

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

#56

Post by junto »

fromhet wrote: post #29
darksaga wrote: post #25

I'm actually glad they are continuing on and fighting the stigma of the "best social network that never was". I have used Diaspora's site for a while and prefer it to Facebook and Google+. The problem is trying to maintain three separate social networks. Since most of the people I like to keep up with are on FB and G+, my use of Diaspora has slowed down over the past year or so.

What kind of people use G+? Only times I visit is when linked, and it's often some OSS-guru who has written something there but I dont ever use it, nor does anyone I know, not even remotely.

G+ is ideal for me. I live far away from my family and using Google Picasa I upload photos that I only share with my family.

I don't trust Facebook with my photos. At any moment they could make a deliberate privacy change and expose private family photos to the Internet.

I value that privacy, and although Google might one day make a mistake and accidentally open a security hole, they don't have a history of deliberately reducing users privacy without their express consent.

All my family are signed up, so G+ is no longer an empty ghost town for me. My 'friends' on the other hand are still all on Facebook. I'm just a lurker now on FB.

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

#57

Post by srik »

generateui wrote: post #50
tylermenezes wrote: post #15

For anyone who missed it because it was at the very end: Diaspora just announced they're in YCombinator S12.

I am very curious to the business model Diaspora will pursue. any details about that already?

I know it's unfeasible (and incredibly selfish of me) but I'd like to see them go the Wikipedia route.

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

#58

Post by gecko »

Avshalom wrote: post #54
gecko wrote: post #43

I don't get the fascination with Diaspora. StatusNet is distributed, open, easy to set up, established, and extensible, and already has a large number of users (e.g. on identi.ca). What does this bring to the table? Newness?

Diaspora:Facebook::StatusNet:Twitter At least near as I can tell without signing up.

Not really. StatusNet has (private, if desired) groups, photo uploads, events, URL sharing, and (on a local install, not on identi.ca) arbitrary-length status updates. I guess it's closer to the defunct Pownce than either Twitter or Facebook, but that puts them closer to Facebook than Twitter at this point in the game.

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

#59

Post by jedc »

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.

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

#60

Post by jarin »

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.

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