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Diaspora: One Month In

joindiaspora.com

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Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#61

Post by dnaquin »

muppetman wrote: post #6
c1sc0 wrote: post #3

I actually like this refreshing new approach to writing open source software: keep it closed for several months & code like madmen. If they can get UX people involved in the closed stage we might even see an open source product with an elegant ui for once!

Totally agree. I think the "release often" philosophy is a good one, but too often and you just open yourself up to "this doesn't work, that's wrong, this is broken etc" I think knuckle down, code a bunch of good stuff then show it off. Of course you'll still get the complaints, but it'll be a lot clearer to a lot more people how it works and the potential it has. All that said, all they've shown us here is a very si…

Sorry to say but "this doesn't work, that's wrong, this is broken etc" is going to be said regardless of when you release and regardless of how many users you have.

The number one rule of software engineering. Your code sucks.

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#62

Post by mortenjorck »

c1sc0 wrote: post #3

I actually like this refreshing new approach to writing open source software: keep it closed for several months & code like madmen. If they can get UX people involved in the closed stage we might even see an open source product with an elegant ui for once!

Yes! It shouldn't be too hard for them to find some good UX people in the middle of SF and still flush with Kickstarter funds; they'll just need to know what to look for.

Of course, there's still the issue of actually countering Facebook with a more organic social structure. If you will excuse my carting out of this fine dead horse once again: http://interuserface.net/2010/05/how-diaspora-can-succeed-mo...

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#63

Post by fizx »

sant0sk1 wrote: post #41
aditya wrote: post #7

What is the nature of their relationship with Pivotal? Anyone know?

It is most likely a client relationship. Pivotal is big on getting their clients into their office so they can participate in the XP process.

Probably not. They don't have enough money yet to afford Pivotal. This is probably just good PR for both sides, as well as relationship-building, so that when Diaspora gets an A round, they can start spending it at Pivotal.

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#64

Post by fizx »

An interesting note is that Pivotal Lab's VP of Technology, Ian McFarland (@imf), was Friendster's Chief Architect. Ian is one of the nicest people in the SF startup scene, and can share the experience of Friendster's growth, pain, and subsequent downfall.

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#65

Post by djacobs »

stcredzero wrote: post #57

What I want to see: DRM for the people! Incorporate White Box Cryptography and the whole suite of tricks so that users can share certain info then unshare it. It wouldn't have to be perfect to be of tremendous benefit to many. (Girlfriend revenge sites won't be thrilled.)

What a fantastic idea. I'd never thought about the positive applications of DRM.

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#66

Post by paulnelligan »

Looks interesting. I really hope they try to change it up completely from 'the facebook model', while still including essential features - personally I'd like to see more emphasis on the virality (yes, virality!) of groups.

These guys seem pretty smart, energetic, and optimistic. Anything that breaks the status quo is good.

However, they could have used some screen capture for the demo ... It wasn't entirely clear to me what was going on there.

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#67

Post by jchonphoenix »

telemachos wrote: post #46
jchonphoenix wrote: post #18

If you step back from the "hype", not to directly oppose the many views present on this board, and analyze their statements, it appears they have more reasons to fail than succeed. The most worrying thing I see is their reliance on pivotal labs. They mention it in passing, but it would appear that the 4 founders of diaspora have very little technical knowledge and have outsourced the majority of their code. They are…

I'm not quite sure what makes you say "the 4 founders...have very little technical knowledge and have outsourced the majority of their code." Here's what I read, After getting settled in ole San Fran, our first day at Pivotal Labs was June 7th. Not only has Pivotal lent us desks and monitors for the summer, they push us daily to drive development from the interface and focus on the experience, rather than providing j…

Pivotal Labs doesn't work for free. If you go to Pivotal's front page, what they do is pretty much do all the coding for a startup. They take a business person's ideas and then code them up and implement them. From there they then teach the business people either how to maintain it or how to hire a dev team that can (or work with the dev team they've hired to learn how to work with the codebase).

Its just what pivotal does for a living, so my logical conclusion was that Diaspora was using Pivotal for code, and their comments on their blog were filtered to with PR speak.

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#68

Post by johngunderman »

axod wrote: post #38
josh33 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like the slow-adopters of facebook. In the world we live in with security becoming more of a general concern, they could be on the front-edge of the revolution they think they are on. Plus, if they deliver on the UX/UI, people will use it.

"In the world we live in with security becoming more of a general concern" Which world is that? The one where people post minute details of their life on twitter? The one where they send naked pics of themselves around, expose themselves on chatroulette? It's going the other way - people are exposing more and more of themselves making more of their life public than ever before. Some geeks are always concerned about p…

Today's concerns for security are not concerns for keeping our information private. Rather, they are concerns that we will maintain control over our private information, to be able to share it at our own discretion. Facebook removes much of this control from the user.

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#69

Post by oldgregg »

garply wrote: post #42

So, if I'm reading this right, the servers will be totally distributed? I don't care about a Facebook replacement so much as a totally distributed file-sharing system where trust and recommendations are based on my real-life friends. It seems like that could happen with this. Also, I think file-sharing is a great hook for the everyday Joe. And it's somewhere Facebook can't easily go.

Yes, a private dropbox/pirate bay among your trusted network of friends is 100% win. Easy to use and virtually invincible to RIAA claims. Heck, include a VLC browser plugin to make it all seemless.

Re: Diaspora: One Month In

#70

Post by axod »

johngunderman wrote: post #68
axod wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the world we live in with security becoming more of a general concern" Which world is that? The one where people post minute details of their life on twitter? The one where they send naked pics of themselves around, expose themselves on chatroulette? It's going the other way - people are exposing more and more of themselves making more of their life public than ever before. Some geeks are always concerned about p…

Today's concerns for security are not concerns for keeping our information private. Rather, they are concerns that we will maintain control over our private information, to be able to share it at our own discretion. Facebook removes much of this control from the user.

no evidence to show that facebook users see it that way, or care.

Also FWIW, I think the name "diaspora" is terrible I cannot see it working at all.

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