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Tag: Diaspora

  • Diaspora: First Impressions

    Diaspora: First Impressions

    Over the past year, Diaspora has been sending out invites to developers and, following that, to general users to come take a gander at their social networking site (it’s still in Alpha so they haven’t made it available to the general public yet). For those that haven’t heard, Diaspora is a budding social network website that emphasizes users’ complete control over their personal information. Yes, yes, cue the collective groan about having yet another social media forum to juggle, and Diaspora is well aware of that plight. However, they’re hoping to distinguish themselves from other sites with the unique pitch that all of the information you post on the site is exclusively controlled and owned by you. You don’t even have to use your real name (I certainly didn’t). Consider this comparison of Diaspora with two other social media sites you may have heard of:

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    The look and feel of the interface on Diaspora’s homepage has a Facebook feel to it although there are no advertisements clearly leaching information from my recent Internet searches the way Facebook and Google do so, right away, I experience my first small delight. Elements of Google+ and even Twitter are also evident in the appearance:

    Diaspora seems to be taking a Google+ lean with how they allow users to organize their newsfeed. You can group friends into Aspects, which resembles the Circles concept that’s used in Google+ to group together similar friends and acquaintances. You can select which Aspect you want to read in your news stream. Additionally, you can exclude certain Aspects from your stream if you so please.

    Moving onto the profile page, again the appearance resembles Facebook’s interface the most although it looks like there is a lot of dead space around the page. Oh right, wait, I know why – that’s because, again, there aren’t any ads cluttering the margins or, for that matter, any force-fed friend suggestions for people I haven’t thought about since eighth grade:

    So what’s the initial verdict?

    I have no problem admitting that my biggest hesitation in using Facebook is the way my personal information is unwittingly harvested from me and then stuffed right back into my face as a smorgasbord of advertisements. I despise that strategy and it’s why I have a very limited presence on Facebook insofar as real biographical information, pictures I’m tagged in, Fort Knox-level security settings, few of my actual interests, etc. In contrast, perhaps the most salient quality of Diaspora is their mission to be exclusively user-controlled. The entire website is based on an open-source code and developers can run their own Diaspora “pod” on their own server. Diaspora explains:

    Diaspora is a software that can be installed on a server by someone that has the knowledge to do so. They in turn can allow people to register for an account on what they call their “pod”. There are many of these pods already established across the internet with many users. You register for a free account on a pod and you can seamlessly connect with other users on other pods the same as if you were making someone a friend on other social networking sites. No matter which pod you are on, you are all using Diaspora. If you have the technical skills, you can even set up your own pod for your family and or friends. They can in turn connect to family and friends on your pod or even other pods with ease. Amazing, isn’t it?

    It basically sounds like Diaspora is gunning to establish themselves as the Linux of social media sites. I can get behind that.

    As far as whether I need to use Diaspora at the moment is another issue. Perhaps unsurprising, the biggest limitation at the time is the lack of personal infrastructure in my social network on Diaspora. The people who are showing up in my newsfeed aren’t my friends; they’re people who have hashtagged the same interests as me on their profile. I just got my invite to join Diaspora yesterday after being on the waiting list since September of this year (I probably would’ve received my invite sooner had I donated money) but none of my IRL friends are on the site. This may be a great thing to you or it may be a horrible thing to you depending on your philosophy about having an online presence. Personally, I’m split on the issue. Given this dilemma, my first impression on Diaspora was mild confusion and lack of purpose, kind of like how I feel when I use Google+. I felt like a tourist in an unfamiliar town where I only spoke a few words of the indigenous language. I felt slightly homesick for my familiar lands of Twitter and Facebook. Alas, I still support Diaspora’s user-centric mission and am not completely opposed to linking up with people who, while I may never meet in person, may provide some entertaining or insightful activity in my online life.

    Having said all of that about Diaspora, I will stick with it for now.

    Other quick-release first impressions of Diaspora:

    – Change your profile name anytime.
    – Change the email you use to access Diaspora and receive notifications anytime.
    – Integrate Twitter and Tumblr accounts.
    – Very gender-label friendly. You can literally type in anything to describe your gender. I typed in “Messianic Granola Bar” and it let me do it. Big points for equality and difference, Diaspora.
    – Limited apps for now, but more are said to be on the way.
    – A function to export all of your personal data is planned for the future.

    Anybody else gotten a chance to play around with Diaspora yet? If so, what’d you think? Yea or nay?

    You can follow the timeline of developments for Diaspora at the site’s Wiki page.

  • Ilya Zhitomirskiy Update: Reports Show Diaspora Co-Founder Committed Suicide

    Over the weekend we reported on the death of Ilya Zhitomirskiy, one of the four co-founders of Diaspora. It was quite tragic, seeing how he was only 22 years old.

    Up to this point little was known about Zhitomirskiy’s death, but it now appears that he committed suicide. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that a source colse to Diaspora told CNNMoney that Zhitomirskiy took his own life.

    The Tribune confirmed with the San Francisco Police Department a police report that officers responded to the 700 block of Treat Ave. around 8:10 PM Saturday. They were dispatched after receiving calls about a possible suicide. “It appears to be a suicide … however, the medical examiner’s office will make the final decision“, said SFPD Officer Alvie Esparza. It’s likely to be several weeks before we know for certain that Zhitomirskiy did in fact commit suicide. If you’d like to read more about Zhitomirskiy, you can visit FamousDead.com.

    If you’re unfamiliar with Zhitomirskiy, he was one of the four co-founders of Diaspora, a free personal web server that implements a distributed social networking service.

    Below is a video of the four co-founders discussing Diaspora:

    Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.

  • Co-Founder of Diaspora, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, has passed away

    A bit of sad news came out of the tech industry today, Ilya Zhitomirskiy has passed away.

    If you’re unfamiliar with Zhitomirskiy, he was one of the four co-founders of Diaspora, a free personal web server that implements a distributed social networking service. It’s been rumored that Diaspora could eventually become a direct competitor to Facebook.

    The death of Zhitomirskiy is pretty hard to grasp, he was only 22. The exact cause of his death is unknown at this time. If you’d like to read more about Zhitomirskiy, you can visit FamousDead.com.

    Our thoughts go out to his friends and family.

    Below is a video of the Diaspora team discussing their project.

    Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.

  • A Brief Look at What Diaspora Will Do

    The source code for Diaspora has been released. It has generated a lot of buzz since it gained funding through Kickstarter and Facebook started drawing more privacy scrutiny earlier this year. Many have looked at the project as a potential alternative to Facebook because of its openness.

    More background here.
     

    "This is now a community project and development is open to anyone with the technical expertise who shares the vision of a social network that puts users in control," the team says. "From now on we will be working closely with the community on improving and solidifying Diaspora."
    Diaspora

     

    The announcement lists the following features:
     
    – Share status messages and photos privately and in near real time with your friends through “aspects”.

    – Friend people across the Internet no matter where Diaspora seed is located.

    – Manage friends using "aspects"

    – Upload of photos and albums

    – All traffic is signed and encrypted (except photos, for now).

    In addition to these, the team says it is working on Facebook integration, internationalization and data portability for its Alpha release in October.

  • Privacy Issues All Over the Place This Week

    There has been a lot of discussion about privacy in the news this past week, and surprisingly, not a whole lot of it has had to do with Facebook. Is the Facebook privacy concern fading? Feel free to discuss your concerns with that in the comments. 

    To be fair, there is at least one current story that is related to Facebook privacy, and that is the upcoming release of Diaspora. This has been billed as an open alternative to Facebook, that would protect the privacy of users. There is naturally a great deal of skepticism about the idea that this will be a significant threat to Facebook, but it has managed to generate a fair amount of hype. It’s scheduled to debut next week (Sept. 15). 
     
    Do you think Diaspora has the potential to put a dent in Facebook’s user base? Let us know. 

    One of the biggest stories of the web this past week has been the release of Google Instant, Google’s new feature, which provides search results as you type your query. This has generated a mix of positive and negative reactions, and some have been concerned with privacy issues related to the feature.  

    Google uses personal information to deliver you search results, but it has done that for some time. The company maintains that it does nothing different in this regard, when it comes to Google Instant. Still, another issue has been raised, related to this feature. 
     
    Maureen O’Connor at Valleywag writes, "The new Google Instant guesses what you’re searching for while you’re typing, and retrieves results before you finish. It’s the T-9 of search engines. And it means buying an "erector set" will make everyone think you have ‘erectile dysfunction.’"

    If you do attempt to search for "erector set" and and pause long enough in the middle of typing to where erectile dysfunction results appear long enough, a SERP for erectile dysfunction can appear in your browser history. I’ve seen it. I’ve actually emailed Google inquiring about this (I suspect it goes by the 3 second rule that the ad impressions do), but I haven’t heard back yet. I will explore this further after I get more info. Update: Google’s response here.

     
    Google updated its privacy policy last week, though the update was more in the language than practice. 
     
    Are you worried about Google Instant from the privacy perspective? Comment here. 

     This past week, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that federal law allows judges the discretion to require that the government obtain a probable cause search warrant before accessing cell phone location data, according to a report from the EFF.

    Thoughts on this? Let us know. 

    Also this past week, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s policy allowing border agents to search laptops or other electronic devices at the border without reasonable suspicion.  

    "These days, almost everybody carries a cell phone or laptop when traveling, and almost everyone stores information they wouldn’t want to share with government officials – from financial records to love letters to family photos," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. 
     
    Something to say about this subject? Go ahead.

    PCWorld reports that e-commerce trade group NetChoice is saying proposals in Congress that would create new rules for sites collecting personal data would "cripple the online advertising and publishing industries." 

    The group maintains that one proposal would allow individual Internet users to sue some sites and ad networks if they fail to comply with the legislation’s rules on getting permission for collecting personal data.
     
    Discuss this topic here. 

    Finally, Time reports that sheriffs in North Carolina are looking to be able to access state computer records that identify people  who have prescriptions for painkillers and other drugs. Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns.  

    Should the police be able to access this info? Let us know what you think.

  • So-Called Facebook Alternative Diaspora Gets a Launch Date

    You may recall that earlier this year, Facebook took a lot of heat over user privacy. While some may still not be satisfied, the company did release simplified privacy settings in response. Around that time, however, a project called Diaspora started generating a lot of hype as a potential, open alternative to Facebook as a social network.

    Considering how early in the development process the Diaspora crew were, and how little was actually known about how it would work, it managed to create a lot of buzz and a significant amount of donations from people eager for an alternative.

    The Diaspora guys have now posted an update, saying that it will be open sourced on September 15, and claiming that is working, and  that they like it.

    Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.

    "We are spending a good chunk of time concentrating on building clear, contextual sharing," the team says. "That means an intuitive way for users to decide, and not notice deciding, what content goes to their coworkers and what goes to their drinking buddies. We know that’s a hard UI problem and we take it seriously."

    Interestingly enough, Google released a similar functionality on its Orkut social network this past week leaving some to wonder if Google would undertake a similar strategy for its broader social network plans.

    "We aren’t going to stop working after we release," the team says. They say they will continue to develop and maintain Diaspora as a long term project. "We have shifted our development timeline accordingly, and the first release will be the beginning of something great, not a finished summer project."

    Are you looking forward to the release? Let us know.

  • Funding and Offers Pour In for Facebook Alternative

    Diaspora has been getting a great deal of attention as reports come out about interest in Facebook account deletion. Facebook’s Open Graph initiative, which has been criticized a great deal for being the opposite of open, has had people considering different options, and one of those options is Diaspora.

    At least that’s the hope. Diaspora, doesn’t actually exist yet, but it’s raising funding, expectations, and a significant amount of interest from third-parties wanting to help out the group of young guys responsible for its existence.
    The group has made more money that it asked for, and has posted an update to its blog today addressing where they’re at with the project:

    Our basic plan is the same: we’re going to build a great lightweight decentralized social networking framework and release it as AGPL software. We’re going to use the extra money to help us reach that goal and to keep improving Diaspora after this summer, and possibly supplement our ramen with the occasional apple. 🙂

    In addition to money, a massive number of talented and experienced people, including developers, designers, hosting companies and lawyers, have offered us their expertise. Though we haven’t responded to the deluge of emails, we have read them all. We’re still working through the backlog and are putting together a great group of advisors.

    We’re also getting in touch with other projects in the space. We had a great talk with the guys behind Ostatus earlier this week, and we are excited to implement the Ostatus standards.

    OStatus is described as an open standard for distributed status updates with the goal of specification that allows different messaging hubs to route status updates between users in near-real-time. It builds upon protocols like PubSubHubbub, Webfinger, ActivityStreams and Salmon – those generally associated with the open web.

    In Diaspora’s initial description of itself, it said, "We are 140-character ideas. We are the pictures of your cat. We are blog posts about the economy. We are the collective knowledge that is Wikipedia."

    Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.

    If the goal is to provide a legitimate alternative to Facebook, Diaspora has a large mountain to climb. No matter how great the product ends up being, it’s going to take getting the masses to sign on, and the masses are Facebook’s greatest asset. Can the enthusiasm of the tech community translate to the average Facebook user? Tell us what you think.

  • What is This Diaspora Everyone’s Talking About?

    There is already a lot of hype being generated for a social network that doesn’t even exist yet. I’m talking about Diaspora, which if you’ve been keeping up with the discussion around Facebook privacy and user unrest, you’ve probably heard name-dropped a few times.

    Diaspora is a social networking "project", which has raised over $100,000 in donations so far. The project it the brain child of a few young guys who want to give users clear and open control over their social networking activities. They want to give users their own nodes.

    Here is their explanation:

    Diaspora: Personally Controlled, Do-It-All, Distributed Open-Source Social Network from daniel grippi on Vimeo.

    "We are 140-character ideas. We are the pictures of your cat. We are blog posts about the economy. We are the collective knowledge that is Wikipedia," the team says. "The internet is a canvas – of which, we paint broad and fine strokes of our lives with. It is a forward extension of our physical lives; a meta-self comprised of ones and zeros. We are all that is digital: If we weren’t, the internet wouldn’t either."

    The guys claim to have a "rudimentary prototype" of Diaspora running on their own machines, which includes GPG encryption, scraping Twitter and Flickr, “awesome design aesthetic”, and the "initial stages of connection infrastructure." OpenID, VoIP, distributed encrypted backups, IM protocol, and UDP integration are some of the things in the plans.

    Diaspora is genius! Large companies have all our social data, let’s trust some 19 year old east coast college kids to fix it! Oh wait…Fri May 14 06:24:42 via Tweetieaviel
    aviel

    The team says that its goal is to get Diaspora in the hands of every man, woman, and child at summer’s end. If that’s their only goal, I’m afraid they’re setting themselves up for failure, but they do plan to release the first iteration of the project in September.

    What do you think? Is Diaspora just the hype of the moment – a product of mass Facebook criticism, or will this become a household name? Hard to say without seeing a product. Share your thoughts.