Diaspora — more social networking, coming soon

 News from the field, Social Networking  Add comments
Sep 302011
 

Question, do you have space in your life for another Social Network? 

It seems the guys over at Diaspora* (the * is part of the brand!) think we do.  In September 2010 they came to the market with an idea to hopefully lure you away from Facebook; the guys were fed up with the privacy issues over at Facebook Towers and set out to design a whole new system.

At the time of the announcement they were seeking funding to develop the system. They were able to raise an amazing $200,000 in under a month via crowd-sourced funding.  They initially promised an Alpha release in October 2010 however that clearly slipped and one year later they are ready to launch the Alpha product for bleeding-edge testers!   (UPDATE: See the comment below from Yosem offering a better explanation)

The concept of Diaspora* is perhaps a little difficult for the average Joe to understand, but in simple terms it is a distributed system.  Anyone can run a Diaspora* pod (their name for a server).  The pods connects up to form the Diaspora* Ecosystem.  All pods communicate with each other, sharing basic data but crucially your personal data is held on your own pod (or whatever pod you are registered with).

In theory this means a club, organisation, or group of friends could run a pod of their own.  Because all the pods communicate you can still share with any other user on the Ecosystem.  You don’t need to be running a pod to participate, you can simply join someone else’s pod, or the mother ship (my description, not theirs)!

It is an interesting idea but it still comes down to who you trust.  No doubt hosting companies will spring up offering to run Pods.  How confident are we that they will manage our privacy concerns?

With Google+ pushing hard into the market, Facebook with a massive user base, and Twitter steaming ahead, one does wonder if Diaspora* has missed the boat, so to speak!

If you are interested in testing the system you can submit your email address over at joindiaspora.com and wait.

 

UPDATE — I have Diaspora invites.  If anyone is interested use the Contact Me in the navigation section at the top right of the blog (please ensure a valid email address for the invite).

 

 

 

  • Yosem Companys

    Thanks for your post. Very much appreciated.

    Only one correction: Our alpha code was released in September 2010, and we created our own community pod in November 2010. Our community pod has remained closed until our upcoming beta launch in November (in celebration of our first year anniversary since launching the alpha).

    In the meantime, there are more than 20 open community pods that are open and have been so since September of last year. You can search for the best one for you via http://podupti.me/.

    Unlike existing social networks, Diaspora is an open-source and distributed community of social networks (or pods). This means that you can download the Diaspora software code, and modify and install it on your own server, so you can run your own personal pod. The benefit of doing this is that you own and control your own social networking data. Heck, not even we could be able to see your data! This is still a bit geeky to do, but we intend to make it much easier to do for mainstream users over time.

    In the meantime, our community pod at JoinDiaspora also enables you to own your own data by virtue of our privacy policy, which enables you to own your own data. We’re community-run and non-commercial, so you can have the peace of mind that we will never sell, trade, or otherwise use your data for commercial purposes. If you’d like an invite, just send me an email at yosem@joindiaspora.com.

  • http://www.40tech.com Evan

    Seeing Yosem’s comment clears things up for me a bit. I saw all the Disapora news, and scratched my head because I could swear I joined it last year. Turns out that I did, as my login still works. They’ve done a nice job of making a clean interface. I think, like Google+, the issue will be getting enough critical mass so that its worth people’s while to spend time there.