On: OneSocialWeb: We’re Ahead Of Diaspora In The Creation Of An ‘Open Facebook’

[naner]

Honestly, I am dumbfounded at all the money and publicity that is getting thrown at Diaspora when they haven't really accomplished anything yet.

I don't think OneSocialWeb will succeed, either. What will likely happen is Facebook will adjust their course or a slightly different Facebook clone will come out with sensible customer-focused privacy policies (like Mint or Wesabe had) and ways to get your data out if you want to leave.

[commandar → naner]

Absolutely. I'm actually kind of surprised at how relatively inept Google is in the social networking field. They have Orkut, but it's pretty much a flop in the US. I mention it in another comment, but they have pretty much the perfect platform in Wave for building a serious distributed social network, but instead bill it as being a glorified email replacement. And Buzz? Is it even worth talking about?

[Kilimanjaro → commandar]

Mix wave, buzz and blogger, with a HUGE touch of visuals and they may have a winner.

Google sucks at visuals, twitter looks fresh and trendy, buzz looks like shit.

They have the technology and the money, what they need is Apple-like designers.

[anigbrowl → commandar]

Me too, but I'm starting to wonder if they're holding off because they don't want to be the subject of antitrust complaints.

[angstrom → anigbrowl]

Might as well give all those high paid lawyers something to do.

[misuba → naner]

The fact that Diaspora have gotten all that attention actually suggests that they have better odds to succeed - the biggest obstacles to a Facebook replacement aren't technical, after all, but social. They're starting by giving themselves a human face, just like MySpace did.

[teej → misuba]

In my experience I have not seen a correlation between meda hype and success.

[misuba → teej]

Attention is the indicator that they're doing something right socially; it itself is not the victory.

[easp → misuba]

Much of the attention they are getting is down to timing. The real trick is to find a way to sustain attention until they actually deliver something.

[anigbrowl → naner]

Well, they've proved they understand the marketing part of it :)

Edit: that wasn't meant as snark. Marketing and mindshare are important in launching a new enterprise, especially one that sets out to bust an existing paradigm. The Diaspora team have done an excellent job in presenting their project, and taught me a valuable lesson. In the process, they've also created useful publicity for Kickstarter as a launchpad.