

Diaspora* means a brighter future for all of us - bootload
http://blog.joindiaspora.com/2011/09/21/diaspora-means-a-brighter-future-for-all-of-us.html

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Nicolas___
It would be nice to have some specific informations about what you guys are
building, on top of the utopic vision email you send monthly.

Many people are interested by the project, but you have to realize we already
know why we are interested.

~~~
noarchy
At this point it seems more like a reminder that they exist. The project isn't
in beta yet, and the alpha has been dragging on for longer than many had
probably anticipated. In that time, G+ has arrived, gone through beta, and has
fully launched.

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icandoitbetter
Please don't spam my inbox Diaspora, especially since I still haven't gotten
the invite I signed up for a year ago.

~~~
llambda
Invites went out yesterday as far as I can tell. I was sent an email with a
link to join the alpha.

~~~
icandoitbetter
Not for everyone. I didn't get one.

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jonnathanson
Some advice on your messaging: if you're trying to solicit hackers to help out
on the project, tell them why they should want in. Give them a reason to
believe. "A brighter future for us all" is vague. It has no particular
meaning.

If you want to convince someone, you've got to figure out what he really
wants. Then you've got to speak to it. And that desire is probably a little
more immediate and concrete than "a brighter future." It has to be something
specific, something tangible, and something that your target audience believes
he can actually achieve if he pitches in.

What are you offering your contributors? Is it experience? A great open-source
community? (Are there any noteworthy members of said community? A little name
drop never hurts, if done tactfully). And what, precisely, are you trying to
build at this stage in the game?

Then, when you target would-be users, answer this: _why_ is a distributed
social networking service better than a walled garden? For the end user,
convenience tends to trump everything. Barring a few vocal malcontents, most
Facebook users don't really give all that much of a hoot that Facebook
"controls" the entire site. Ditto G+. Explain to these users why they benefit
from an open-source, distributed SNS. (And hopefully this benefit far exceeds
any temporary inconvenience associated with figuring out _how_ to use it).

Finally, you might want to split these blog posts / messages by target
audience. Have developer-facing posts, and non-technical-user-facing posts.
Try to speak to both audiences at once, and you're neither fish nor fowl.

Best of luck to you. I am certainly pulling for you, and for your concept in
general.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Diaspora won't overtake Facebook or Google+, but it might convince them to
hook into their distributed network. Especially since it's no real threat. If
Diaspora can become to social networks what Trackback is to blogs, that will
be enough of a success.

~~~
hollerith
Tangent: are trackbacks in any way a success? Do you for example know anyone
who uses them or pays attention to them? Are they useful to certain softwares?

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MatthewPhillips
I think they were used a bit back in blog's heyday but they're probably too
complicated for most bloggers to use, and those who do tend to be spammers. So
the analogy was perhaps bad. I want Diaspora to be the glue for the social
internet, the way trackbacks are, albeit more elegantly.

