I think the difference is that Identica hasn't found any terribly rich veins of Twitter discontent to tap into, whereas Diaspora is getting NY Times publicity j

I think the difference is that Identica hasn't found any terribly rich veins of Twitter discontent to tap into, whereas Diaspora is getting NY Times publicity just because Facebook has pissed so many people off with their privacy issues. And this despite the fact that Diaspora doesn't even exist yet.