By now, you probably know that Diaspora is a (as yet unpublished) social network where you own and control your private information.
The story goes that 4 NYC students were inspired by a speech by Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen, who stated that centralized social networks were “spying for free”. The four then used crowdfunding website Kickstarter to raise capital in April and May, and quickly reached and surpassed their US$10,000 goal. Famously, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg made a contribution.
As promised to their financial supporters, they have spent all summer coding and they have just announced
We have Diaspora working, we like it, and it will be open-sourced on September 15th.
They are getting a lot of press coverage here in the UK, from the Telegraph’s opinion-charged Diaspora, the ‘anti-Facebook’, is doomed to the BBC’s purely-sticking-to-the-facts approach Facebook alternative Diaspora eyes launch date.
Is Diaspora going to be a social network for geeks, as some have suggested, or has it got the potential to take over Facebook? Personally, I’d like it to be the latter but I fear it will be the former. What do you think?
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