Fed up with Facebook? Ticked at Twitter? Diaspora* is up and running!

I read today that FB has 800 million subscribers. Unreal.

It's suspicious as far as I'm concerned.  If someone wants to connect with me, they just have to email, or go to my figure skating bulletin board.

Sven wrote:

I don't use Twitter but I do have a FB account.

So, relative to FB, radiorahim, and from an average user's perspective, what are the three biggest benefits to Diaspora* versus FB?

Speaking for myself, I'd say the main benefits are privacy and ethical ones.

Interesting, RR. But have you tried the link below, and does it work - i.e. does it provide the same data that [url=http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=data_requests]this more formal request[/url] would do?

[url=https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=212802592074644]How can I download my information from Facebook?[/url]

PS: I've followed the latter, and am waiting for my confirmation email to arrive saying they've archived my stuff and are ready to deliver.

ETA: Ok, it packed up a 86 MB zip file, seems to include my photos, videos, status updates - apparently they don't send my comments on other people's posts.

In fairness, NDPP, it should be noted that the techie who discovered this has [url=http://nikcub.appspot.com/facebook-fixes-logout-issue-explains-cookies]p... an update[/url] about his discussions with Facebook and their efforts to explain and correct the issue. He concludes:

Quote:

Facebook has changed as much as they can change with the logout issue. They want to retain the ability to track browsers after logout for safety and spam purposes, and they want to be able to log page requests for performance reasons etc. I would still recommend that users clear cookies or use a separate browser, though. I believe Facebook when they describe what these cookies are used for, but that is not a reason to be complacent on privacy issues and to take initiative in remaining safe.

I discovered a lot of other issues and interesting areas ripe for further investigation while researching the cookie logout issue - and I will be taking each one of them up on the blog here in the near future.

I must thank Gregg Stefancik, an engineer at Facebook who reached out (and also left the 'official' Facebook response as a comment on the previous post) and who worked with us on this issue. Thank you as well to other Facebook engineers who reached out. On my end Ashkan Soltani and Brian Kennish (author of the excellent disconnect browser plugins that every user should be running) were invaluable with providing tests, advice and additional sets of eyes.

Hey RR, question:

In the Diaspora signup procedure, they ask this as an option:

Quote:

Connect to your other social networks

Connecting to services will allow you to publish out to these services. With Facebook, you also be able to find friends already on Diaspora and invite others.

Should I say "yes" or "no" to connect to Facebook? Or would that only allow a one-way transfer of FB data to Diaspora? As a rule I always click "no" to anything that asks permission to use my FB data.

When we started Diaspora two years ago, the project kicked off with amazing reception and support from people that believed in our ultimate goal: giving users ownership over their data. It’s a powerful idea, one that captured the imaginations of millions of people across the world. This vision has expanded and evolved over the past two years that we have been working on it as the project has grown.

Diaspora* began when we were still at NYU – just four guys trying to scratch our own itch. We had an idea about how social networks could work in a new and exciting way. We intended to be done over the course of a summer, and with an expected budget of $10,000 from our Kickstarter campaign. The reception of this idea was so good that we managed to reach 20 times the expected amount in donations, and the project expanded to cover far more than just a summer. It’s been over two years now, and we are proud of what Diaspora has become.

Today, the network has grown into thousands of people using our software in hundreds of installations across the web. There are hundreds of pods that have been created by community members, and it has become one of the biggest Github projects to date. It has been translated to almost fifty languages, with hundreds of developers worldwide contributing back to the project.

Diaspora has grown into something more than just a project four guys started in their office at school. It is bigger than any one of us, the money we raised, or the code we have written. It has developed into something that people all over the world care about and are inspired by. We think the time is right to reflect this reality, and put our code where our hearts lie.

Today, we are giving control of Diaspora to the community.

 

Diaspora sounds like a great idea, and I joined it back in the spring, only to  find to my disappointment that precisely zero of my Facebook friends are on it. Doesn't do me much good if I can't use it to connect with my friends and family.

I've reduced my fb profile and content down to barebones info and family contacts.  Seriously considering ditching it entirely, as most family have my house number, and they all have phone service.  And besides...I speak with my mom at least once a week, which is often better than the daily feed, and just as graphic sometimes.

I was functioning in the peer to peer server world, which is vastly superior in terms of user interface, control and privacy...starting about 13 years ago with the release of a FPS game from Novalogic.  A handful of diehards of the particular game we were using from that era still operate servers all over the world despite the fact that Novalogic eventually disbanded it's rental server option, game menu linkages, and support desk.  Mine was a 24/7 family friendly server, at least as far as FPS games go, governed for profanity by a user created application called 'judge dread,' where I'd enter all the curse words I could think of, and when they'd pop up in the chat between gamers a mod message would be sent out to stop or suffer the consequences...which at first was a punt out of the server, followed up with a ban for further abuses, according to what was already recorded in the banlog.  Later as technology progressed, ISPs would have rotating IPs which were troublesome to protect against at first, until we began to use IP wallmaster software.

I use Linux, and I tried to install and run Friendica, and then Diaspora, on my computer, and I failed.  I have a static IP address with high speed, so I can run a home web server.  However, these are not easy programs to set up.

I joined the Diaspora link you gave, so I'll try it out.  I'm not a huge fan of social networking though.  It's only recently that I've activated a Facebook account to appease some of my friends.  I also did try out the test site of Friendica -- it is a better program than Diaspora, I think. 

However, I don't think there's much hope in either Diaspora or Friendica overtaking Facebook anytime soon.  Most people would not be able to set it up on their own computer (and wouldn't wish to pay extra for a static IP address to run a web server), and most people would also not be willing to pay extra to have one of these programs hosted on a remote server.  So, that leaves trusting a smaller community server or a technically efficient friend to host your social networking account.  However, most people would not wish to trust their life's memories to a smaller server due to the worry of the server going belly-up and disappearing.  Losing precious baby, kitten, family, and friend memorabilia to a vanished server would piss people off.  So in that regard, bigger would be seen as more secure.

While I worry about stuff with Facebook regarding user's information being a commodity to be sold for big business, I think the reality (as is being borne out in the declining market value of Facebook) is that the value of such a mass of information really is not as high as people first imagined.  It is turning out to not be the great market research tool of value that some people initially assumed it was going to be.  I think that the end of Facebook will not be due to a collection of smaller servers running a clone of it in pods (IE, Diaspora or Friendica) but rather it simply withering away and dying like AOL did.

The Freedom Box project looks interesting.  The idea of better encryption is good.  If the ability to remove traces of oneself from the Internet can be developed and given to people, then that too would be good.  For instance, when in a pub or cafe, we may say stupid stuff, but it's not there forever to bite one in the ass later, whereas a lot of internet conversations are.  The freedom to err (and to err is human) is preserved.  Thus the freedom to be human is preserved.

Mind you, I'm not sure how I feel about the proprietary vs open source debate.  Even though I use Linux exclusively (and have done so for ten years since my overpriced Windows computer broke), the idea of shifting development of software from paid employees to worldwide volunteers seems almost too akin to workfare.  That trend of using free labour has sifted over into other industries.  Just a while ago I saw an advertisement for an "internship" for data entry clerks.  The labour situation is horrendous now.

Anyway, the Freedom Box does look good.  Have others from here joined the Diaspora Pod?

The Share option (aka AddThis) at the top of Rabble articles gives users a chance to utilize other sharing services besides Facebook or Twitter.  But, when I checked it, even though there appears to be over a hundred different options (including stuff like StumbleUpon or Orkut), neither Diaspora nor Friendica are listed.  So, even Rabble is not paying any heed to Diaspora.  But, if Rabble wishes to list a share button for it, then ...

Here's a Diaspora share button:  http://simounet.github.com/Diaspora-Share-Button/

Here's another one:  http://sharetodiaspora.github.com/about/

I couldn't find any for Friendica.

Users themselves can add sharing function with a Firefox addon.

Unionist wrote:

[url=http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/10/2/what-happened-to-the-facebook-kill... happened to Diaspora*, the Facebook killer? It's complicated.[/url]

That was really a very interesting report on the (short) life of Diaspora*.

Very early in the report, you will find this comment: "...we’ve readily sacrificed freedom for something far more seductive and perhaps, easily recognizable: convenience."

I think many folks erroneously discount the importance that convenience plays in most people's decisions in life.

Do people want to run into a shop and buy clothes off the rack, even clothes that may be made in China and sold in Walmart, or do they want to sew their own clothing?

Do people wish they could still buy cars that they could tinker with and fix themselves or do they want far more complex and less user-friendly vehicles (from a tinkering and fixing perspective) but that works flawlessly, year after year after year?

Do people want a laptop, like a Mac, that does exactly what they want it to do everytime they flip up the screeen or do people want to use hardware and software that isn't produced by a big corporation but may require futzing around with it all of the time?

Do people want to go from one shop to another to find the best price for a product that they want or do they want to pop online and find what they are looking for instantly -- and then have it delivered right to their front door?

Do people want to cut down their own trees, plane their own lumber, and make their furniture or do they want to run into IKEA?

Facebook does what I want it to do: Keep connected with distant friends and family.  I am unconcerned about the privacy issue -- I don't put anything out there that I wouldn't want anyone to see.  It's easy to use and works all of the time.

I think I'm like most people: I like convenience.  I like things that are simple to use.  I like things that work reliably.  And, companies like Apple, Toyota, Facebook, Amazon, IKEA, etc. deliver that time after time.

Until an "alternative system" can offer that same convenience, easy of use, and reliable performance, most people are not going to be interested in it.

[url=http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-are-dead-people-liking-stuff-on-face... Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook?[/url]