there is no space for another network between Facebook and LinkedIn
15 years ago this guy'd have been saying
there is no space for another search engine between Yahoo! and AskJeeves
Diaspora has the potential to be disruptive in a massive way, it can do to social networks what google did to search. Phrases like:
it's come too late in the evolution of social networking
make me think the author really doesn't understand how quickly trends and allegiances change on the net. For instance, I spent a year on reddit, accumulated 1000 link karma and 8000 comment karma, and then discovered HN and my reddit usage has gone right down.
It's never too late for users to be attracted to shinier products.
The claims made in the article are:
1) Diaspora will fail because facebook's really big.
2) Diaspora will fail because Zuck's invested in it.
3) Diaspora will fail because there's a lot of competition.
4) Diaspora will fail because facebook's well funded.
5) Diaspora will fail because it hasn't launched yet.
6) Diaspora will fail because privacy doesn't matter to users.
Apart from the last one, I don't think any of those have any force at all. Lots of successful companies have launched against strong, well funded competitors in a crowded marketplace and been massively sucessful. And sure, lots have failed too. But the arguments are way too broad to have any meaning for the specific Diaspora/Facebook debate. You can apply them just as well to any startup you care to mention.
The only thing of any substance in the article is claim 6, the rest is too generic to matter.
What's even worse, is that a year down the line when Diaspora does fail, this hack'll say "Yeah I predicted that". No, you just pointed out some general reasons why startups have a tough time.
Diaspora will probably fail. But not for any of the reasons given in the article. Number 6 will possibly have an impact. The author only devotes 6 lines of text to that, the rest you could literally copy and paste for every startup and just change the names and numbers.
Diaspora is appealing to me because it's appealing to many of my geeky friends.
