[stampeder]

The students' plan with Diaspora is to allow participants to retain ownership of all the material they use on the site, and retain full control over how that information is shared. It will also allow users to divide their social connections into individual groups, called Aspects, and control which groups see which material, according to the website.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9197882/Open_source_social_network_Diaspora_goes_live

Given that they rapidly raised $200,000 in financing already I can see that Diaspora is wanted. Given how Facebook "owns" everything a person puts on it (and gives itself the right to use all of it as it sees fit) Diaspora will be a refreshing alternative. http://joindiaspora.com/

Will it work? Well, just ask MySpace what happens when someone comes along with a better idea. Here's hoping.

 

[Jake]

Nope.

1. Terrible name.
2. Generation Z does not give a whit about privacy or rights.
3. Limited business opportunities.

 

[99semaj]

Absolutely will work. Facebook has proven itself an untrustworthy "Friend", and this open source solution will gain broad acceptance.

 

[blueroomelectro]

I agree with Jake.

99% of the folks using Facebook just don't care as long as it works and is free.

 

[talljak]

According to the site: "you need to use a real browser to use this site".
How maybe people using IE will just give up? Thinking the site does not work.

 

[PFD]

Facebook has become the established norm. So established that my 75 year old dad is on it. It's like Google. Try as they might, new upstarts can't break in. To compare it with Myspace is silly---myspace never had the reach facebook has.

 

[Jake]

Facebook has proven itself an untrustworthy "Friend"

Yet it remains popular. Is that not what matters? Of all the "friends" I know on FB none of them are concerned enough to stop using it or join MySpace or Windows Live Spaces. Social Networking is a crowded established place. Here are just a few I plucked from Wikipedia.

• Facebook 500M
• Qzone 200M
• Twitter 175M
• Habbo 162M
• MySpace 130M
• Windows Live Spaces 120M
• Bebo 117M
• Orkit 100M
• Friendster 90M
• Hi5 80M
• Linkedln 80M

I predict Diaspora will never pass 10% of FBs numbers.

 

[grog]

Man, I must be getting out of touch. I haven't even heard of half of the sites on that list. Qzone? Habbo? Bebo? Orkit?

 

[Jake]

The rest of the world is a big place.

 

[mr weather]

More like the rest of the "virtual world" is a big place.

 

[stampeder]

It sounds like you're thinking of it as a commercial product which may of may not fail in the marketplace, but that's not what it is about. Anyone who is alarmed by statements like the following can make the switch and invite a bunch of people:

Stats from social networking safety apps suggest that one in five items on the news feeds of Facebook users lead to malicious content.

More than three in five (60 per cent) of these attacks come from notifications generated by malicious third-party applications on Facebook's developer platform, according to Romanian-based net security firm BitDefender.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/24/facebook_malware_survey/

To me it doesn't matter whether people ignore Facebook's many downfalls, or who does what with Diaspora (including ignoring it). It matters that it is a lot safer, a lot more private, and will be available for free.

 

[Jake]

It matters that it is a lot safer, a lot more private, and will be available for free.

FB is free. But FB is about broadcasting narcissism. It caters to peoples egos. Why would they want less exposure? If people wanted more privacy/safety they would not be on FB. Or they could use email or join one of the more obscure social networking sites. Some of them actually have locks in place that restrict the flow of information. There are countless free photo sharing and forums as well.

 

[pappcam]

Facebook is going nowhere. Period.

This whole privacy thing is overblown anyway. People just want to basically see what everyone else is doing and Facebook provides that service in a easy and free manner. They don't care if their address is stored on a server somewhere half way around the world.

I'm sure our democratically elected government who take our hard earned tax dollars and basically work for us have way more serious privacy breaches each and every day.

 

[stampeder]

To have this option of Diaspora is better than to not have this option.

 

[QuickSilver]

So it does not support IE? So logging in from an internet Kiosk or something along those lines with only IE on it....will not allow them to check their site? Seems like a major over-site if they want this social network site to work.

 

[stampeder]

It is precisely because they want their site to work as planned that they cannot allow old bug-ridden browsers. All the power in the world to them!

 

[QuickSilver]

Yes Stamp I know how much you hate IE as I do as well but for them to not support it are they not just shooting themselves in the foot out of the gate? Like it or not IE is the browser many people use whether they want to or not.

 

[stampeder]

My feelings aren't relevant to their decision or this thread. They explained that they cannot trust IE and older versions of browsers.

Again, who cares whether they get a big "share" or not? I don't. I just like what they're doing and I will think about using it.

 

[99gecko]

1. Terrible name.

I agree. The first word association I got was a partial portmanteau of diarrhea and myopia. I hope neither of those afflictions hit the site.

Or they could use email or join one of the more obscure social networking sites.

I bet that this is what this will end up as, because of:

it does not support IE ....... Like it or not IE is the browser many people use whether they want to or not.

My company has recently allowed employees to access social networking sites from corporate computers. For a long time it was a no-no. But only the more savvy employees have found a way around administrator rights to get Firefox and Chrome installed. Most suffer the default IE.

 

[QuickSilver]

Ok. My point was more that a social network site needs to actually reach everyone. I think that is relevant when the title of the thread has Facebook in it.