Diaspora is bizarre, isn't it?
There are so many free-as-in-speech social networking software frameworks out there, what is one more? There is no way on earth that this is going to be even a blip on Facebook's radar.
Having said that, here's why this might be interesting.
If they get a combination of three things right :
a) the encryption / security / privacy
b) the user interface (so it's easy to install and administrate)
c) the hype, to get a critical mass of developers looking at it
If they do, then this could become an interesting basis of what you might call a "Virtual Private Intranet". A cheap way for a small distributed company to securely share profiles / discussions / news-tweets / files across the public internet.
Interestingly, although Facebook lets you create groups, it's not a great tool for say, people who like Dubstep,to set up a space where they can easily share their collections of mp3s with each other.
The trend is for social networks to get more private as they become more serious and more important. And there's plenty of room for growth in what you could call the "darknet" sector. (Criminals and cypherpunks have encrypted p2p sharing networks, but ordinary people and businesses still can't get them very easily.) So, if Diaspora
could make a cheap, easy-to-setup synthesis of Dropbox, LinkedIn and Twitter then they might have something interesting.
Of course, Ampify might get there first :-)
An imaginary New Orleans street
6 hours ago
1 comment:
Ethan Zuckerman is speaking at the Open Video Conference, his post deals with human rights activist posting on private networks like YouTube. On Rebooting the News Winer and Jay Rosen's podcast recently Winer said he didn't believe in "Net-neutrality." The podcast is informal conversation so they didn't delve deep, but there is some overlap with what Zuckerman points to.
"Net-neutrality" is a good example of important public policy where the dilemma is rallying public opinion around somewhat complex technical issues. Most folks are like me lacking technical knowledge.
Your observations about Diaspora, or if not them others, filing a real need is important. But there's a need for social responsibility norms to be advocated in re the big guys. And in a sense that's part of the foundation of Net-neutrality advocacy.
It's important for Diaspora in it's DNA not to be darknet or seen to be. I think Diaspora shouldn't be seen as the anti-Facebook, even as much fun it is to bat around the word "evil."
When these tools are for creating good that is what will make them prosper.
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