Personally, I don't have a huge beef with Facebook at this time, and I'm staying put there, but that's not to say other people shouldn't be thinking out loud, p

Personally, I don't have a huge beef with Facebook at this time, and I'm staying put there, but that's not to say other people shouldn't be thinking out loud, playing with and launching alternatives for how people stay in touch and collaborate online. Right now I'm not too concerned with these specific four's coding abilities or whether or not Diaspora stands a chance to attract a wide audience. What's important is that different groups of people try different things. Having said that, now that they're raised a lot of cash in a short period of time, they have a responsibility to account for how it's being spent. What are the project milestones? What are they committing to release, based on their current budget? Where is the money going? What kind of availability do they have to work on this beyond the summer? What is their plan for when they run out of money? They've attracted a lot of eyeballs and dollars because people decided to vote out of spite against Facebook with their wallets, and not because of careful due diligence of Diaspora's plan. The stakes are high and a lot of people will expect to see results before the year is over. These four are going to have a lot of Google juice associated with their names for years to come, so they better know what they're getting themselves into.