Notice how for anyone who donates more than $5 they need to send them a CD with Diaspora on it. $25 gets them a t-shirt etc.
For 6k donors, they're going to spend ~$50-100k of the $200k they raised just meeting their commitments. Not to mention a huge amount of time dealing with the logistics.
Edit: Jesus, if you account for the fact that they promised 1 year hosted service, and 1 year phone support for anyone who donated more than $350, these guys are already underwater.
By "hosting" they mean 1 year of a Diaspora account on their server. So essentially that's 30/month for unlimited photo and text uploads to a walled garden site. I'm pretty sure they're fine.
Anyway, I believe the phone support is a much more serious liability.
Maybe they found socknet too ?
That wiki was filled on may the 19th, well after the diaspora stuff hit the media, or it hasn't been updated in ages before then.
http://socknet.net/wiki/index.php?title=Special:RecentChange...
That money the diaspora guys raised has one definitely negative side effect, there will be quite a few people that may try to get a share of the cake.
There's the same page with the limit changed from the default of 7 days (May 19) to 30 (April 26).
And of course Google's been caching stuff there for awhile:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:socknet.net
I know the Socknet guy via some trusted former coworkers and I've watched this project for a year or two. He's earnest and hasn't looked for any attention.
I posted his open letter here because I think he deserves some attention for his hard work, whereas the Diaspora team made a cheeky video and deserve to have their goals questioned (do they really intend to do something progressive or is this about personal reward?)
edit: grammar
He's definitely looking for attention here, otherwise why post an open letter ?
If he wasn't looking for attention he could have easily mailed the diaspora people, by making this an open letter he is trying to get a slice of the media attention.
Nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn't interpret it in any other way, even if he's serious.
To me he's not just serious, but also very slow.
The sourceforge project was registered on the 15th of may, this is not a project that has been in mainstream development for two years. It may have been in development for two years but not with the kind of push behind it that you need for a successful launch of a web application.
It looks like someone's pet project that did not gain much traction that they're trying to breathe new life in.
No doubt. I stated that badly. It would have been better stated as "hadn't looked for any attention" or "hasn't looked for glory".
To me he's not just serious, but also very slow.
Some of us are out in the world trying to provide for ourselves and our families while tending to our passions as time allows. To me it has spoken of admirable dedication. =^)
Cheeky got them buzz. There is plenty of eye balls on them now to deliver I agree. Good luck to all!
Write one letter to the Diaspora team and, at best, they consider it. Put the letter out there (under the guise of being related to Diaspora to gain extra attention) and maybe a dozen teams consider it.
Even email is centralized.
The only problem would be getting the current industry leader, facebook, to willing adopt such a thing. They probably won't so this would be more of a consideration for the next generation of social networks.
I can start my own email server (or use one of millions of others) and send/receive to/from users on any other server... clearly decentralized (where is the center?)
Email is centralized in that individuals usually register with a provider, rather than use their own machines. I think social networking can adopt a similar model so all we really need is an easy way to pick up our social data and go to a new provider. I mean who I consider to be my friends is my data, so why not have a systematic definition of it that can be carried with me to every site, instead of recreating those connections using whatever interface is on each of the social sites I use.
Also, do we really need a solution that is distributed or would a dropdown box on Facebook that says "Visible to:" and lets you select a group (e.g., Friends, Family, Everyone) do?
Geeks sometimes don't seem to understand the power and value of word choice, or design. Smart word choice and updated design is not sufficient, but in a Web 2.0+ world, it's necessary.
