

Diaspora October Update - ElbertF
http://www.joindiaspora.com//2010/10/29/october-update.html

======
waxman
Facebook has far better security, far better privacy controls, and absurdly
better UI/UX, and after a few releases I have lost my faith in the Diaspora
core team to ever close the gap on any of these areas.

Diaspora was a nice thought experiment, but there is simply no reason to
switch and will never be. Your data is going to be much more exposed on some
rando's hobby Diaspora server than it will be on Facebook's.

Also, social networks are not tech problems; they're interface problems, even
for a subproblem like privacy. And the UI/UX of Diaspora is pretty poor.

A real, viable Facebook alternative would focus much more on a novel interface
that makes sharing and privacy more intuitive, not some technical solution
that will be less secure than Facebook anyways.

I have a ton of respect for them throwing themselves out there, but i think
they should hire a designer or two and refocus their efforts on interface
rather than features.

~~~
michaelchisari
I up-voted you because I wholeheartedly agree that privacy is primarily a
UI/UX issue, because the strongest internal privacy algorithms don't mean much
in a social network if most people don't use them.

Although I disagree that Facebook's privacy UI/UX is a good one. I almost find
it purposefully obfuscated in order to encourage world-readable posting.

And ultimately, the issue with Facebook is how the company operates with
user's data, by virtue of being an effective monopoly in the social networking
market.

~~~
waxman
I agree that Facebook's attitude towards privacy and market position can be
bad for users, but I don't think Diaspora will necessarily be better for users
just because it != Facebook.

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stevejohnson
No mention of security improvements, so still useless.

~~~
jpeterson
My tinfoil-hat theory: Diaspora is an inevitable failure deliberately planted
and promoted behind the scenes by Facebook, as part of a strategy to
discourage would-be social networking startups.

~~~
jamesteow
While I don't believe in that, I do think it's odd that Kickstarter accepted
their proposal despite being very clear that they don't accept startups and
they are catered towards the creative arts.

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jdp23
If you'd like to try it out, <http://openspora.com/> is a public seed.

There's also some useful information at <http://diasporatest.com/>

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moe
I still think the diaspora-design is an non-starter.

However I do have respect for their persistence even after receiving so much
negative feedback.

~~~
tiles
This is absolutely what I think HN gives them too little credit for.

Their first release, they released on time, as promised. It was far from a
complete release, terribly buggy, full of security holes. But they shipped.
They're updating on their status, they've fixed all reported security holes
with their first release, and they're announcing a second iteration soon,
inspite of such negative feedback the first time around. All of these are the
qualities of a successful startup, they were simply hyped too much, too early.
This doesn't mean they're less capable as a team, just too open to scrutiny.

~~~
jamesteow
"This is absolutely what I think HN gives them too little credit for."

You think a company that got $200k in startup funding and accepted tons of
media attentions via interviews before even writing a single line of code
should get more credit?

No. I see tons of far more experienced developers here on HN putting their
efforts in their projects with far less to start off with and absolutely no
media attention on their side. I'm willing to be extremely lenient on any
shortcomings in such scenarios because of what they are up against.

But Diaspora was in control of how much hype they got and they got some
serious leg ups that few people ever get in their lifetime. They accepted the
NYTimes piece. They got accepted at Kickstarter (a feat which I have said
before, is a serious aberration in terms of the projects they allow) and
subsequently received tons of funding despite having such little work
experience.

So considering the resources, I don't think it's out of the ordinary for
developers and casual observers to expect a well thought out development.

------
snissn
all the nonsensical arguments about android being open/closed vs iOS being
open/closed should apply 1000x to this project.

They deved all summer in a closed environment, then pushed a release, and then
people were surprised that it wasn't any good......

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jchonphoenix
Isn't this project pretty much dead already?

I was under the impression that it was heavily hyped, but it was always doomed
to failure due to the fact that it only got press due to facebook privacy
issues, which users seem not to care about. Additionally it solves problems by
adding more of them. Then, when it finally came out, the security issues and
poor quality of the code doomed it to failure.

------
joshfinnie
The website is down[1] as for 8:30 this morning. This either means they can't
keep it up for bad coding, or Diaspora has more of a following that we give it
credit for. I still am interested to see where this goes.

[1]
[http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://www.joindiaspora.c...](http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://www.joindiaspora.com/Pcc)

