2nd September 2011 UPDATE: I received a reply on twitter from their Diaspora account, indicating this is Parr of their decentralisation plan for social networks.
I received an invite to Diaspora... or D*, as it's becoming known in the twittersphere.
I was asked what my thoughts are, and it's simple and complicated at the same time.
To put it bluntly, D* has the potential to be just another social network struggling to fight against the established giant that is Facestalk, or the social network and service to end all social networks.
Some History
D* essentially started as 4 kids working on a summer project, quite a while ago. Without doing any fact checking, I'm pretty sure the Diaspora summer project started before Google launched the alpha of their failed Wave service. Why even mention Google Wave? Google Buzz hasn't really taken, Wave failed before it could come out of Alpha and now Plus... can Google sustain a third strike in the social network game?
Diaspora Vs. Google Plus
As soon as you log into either service, there are some pretty obvious similarities between G+ and D*. One thing you get with D* that you don't on G+ is the ability to share your post across D*, FB and twitter with the click of one button. A very convenient feature indeed... but does it go far enough?
D* and/or G+ Vs. Facestalk
Facestalk is established, well established. Last time I checked something like 400 million users and I'm sure it's more than that now. Remember that your average FB user plays application games like citywars or mobville, and continually sends out requests from applications I have absolutely no interest in. Remember that most FB users aren't concerned by it's blatant lack of respect for it's user's privacy or information security.
The biggest draw card for G+ and D* at the moment are the information security benefits and user's control over their own data, but I'm not sure that matters to the vast majority of people already using FB. As for the people not using FB, what incentive do they have to join another social network.
G+ or D* would both be fantastic if all (or at least most) of your friends make the move with you. I tried this already with G+, but within a week the novelty seemed to wear off and most of my friends had reverted back to FB. Why? Because that's where most of their friends are.
What about twitter?
Twitter is on it's own, it covers a niche that none of the other networks are angling for. While FB is good for sharing photos/events/comments is a really dynamic way, twitter's 140 character limit on posts keeps the experience quite organic in a really detached kind of way.
What do G+ or D* need to compete with FB?
Obviously, any social network service is only as good as the users friend network in that service. My preference for either G+ or D* doesn't matter squat if every time I log in my feed is empty.
There is one simple solution... make the social network service a client as well. With D* already allowing you to post to other services, all it needs is to do now is present me with my FB and twitter feeds and I can D* all I want regardless if any of my friends are there immediately.
As one or two friends realise they can move away from FB without losing touch with their FB friends, they will do so with confidence... and the flow-on will be a steady conversion. Without this intermediate step, it's hard to convince all your friends to make the move... especially when everyone's partner seems addicted to citywars and mobville.
The first service to offer twitter and FB API feeds, wins.
I was asked what my thoughts are, and it's simple and complicated at the same time.
To put it bluntly, D* has the potential to be just another social network struggling to fight against the established giant that is Facestalk, or the social network and service to end all social networks.
Some History
D* essentially started as 4 kids working on a summer project, quite a while ago. Without doing any fact checking, I'm pretty sure the Diaspora summer project started before Google launched the alpha of their failed Wave service. Why even mention Google Wave? Google Buzz hasn't really taken, Wave failed before it could come out of Alpha and now Plus... can Google sustain a third strike in the social network game?
Diaspora Vs. Google Plus
As soon as you log into either service, there are some pretty obvious similarities between G+ and D*. One thing you get with D* that you don't on G+ is the ability to share your post across D*, FB and twitter with the click of one button. A very convenient feature indeed... but does it go far enough?
D* and/or G+ Vs. Facestalk
Facestalk is established, well established. Last time I checked something like 400 million users and I'm sure it's more than that now. Remember that your average FB user plays application games like citywars or mobville, and continually sends out requests from applications I have absolutely no interest in. Remember that most FB users aren't concerned by it's blatant lack of respect for it's user's privacy or information security.
The biggest draw card for G+ and D* at the moment are the information security benefits and user's control over their own data, but I'm not sure that matters to the vast majority of people already using FB. As for the people not using FB, what incentive do they have to join another social network.
G+ or D* would both be fantastic if all (or at least most) of your friends make the move with you. I tried this already with G+, but within a week the novelty seemed to wear off and most of my friends had reverted back to FB. Why? Because that's where most of their friends are.
What about twitter?
Twitter is on it's own, it covers a niche that none of the other networks are angling for. While FB is good for sharing photos/events/comments is a really dynamic way, twitter's 140 character limit on posts keeps the experience quite organic in a really detached kind of way.
What do G+ or D* need to compete with FB?
Obviously, any social network service is only as good as the users friend network in that service. My preference for either G+ or D* doesn't matter squat if every time I log in my feed is empty.
There is one simple solution... make the social network service a client as well. With D* already allowing you to post to other services, all it needs is to do now is present me with my FB and twitter feeds and I can D* all I want regardless if any of my friends are there immediately.
As one or two friends realise they can move away from FB without losing touch with their FB friends, they will do so with confidence... and the flow-on will be a steady conversion. Without this intermediate step, it's hard to convince all your friends to make the move... especially when everyone's partner seems addicted to citywars and mobville.
The first service to offer twitter and FB API feeds, wins.
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