It'll be fragmentation, yes, but hopefully it will be smart fragmentation, not chaos. The purpose of a distributed social network is for there not to be a singl

It'll be fragmentation, yes, but hopefully it will be smart fragmentation, not chaos. The purpose of a distributed social network is for there not to be a single centralized server. They're not building a Facebook clone, they're building an open social network. The way people use social networks right now is fragmented. People have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. and they have to continually check those. What Diaspora potentially offers is a way to unify that communication, if you so choose. Diaspora doesn't necessarily have to move people over from Facebook to their service completely. People may not need to leave any service at all. All Diaspora needs to do, is provide the same access to their social network, but with a little bit more control and extensibility. There are currently 3,208,579 people on Facebook who want a dislike button. If Diaspora can provide that in the form of a dislike plugin, there's a lot of potential users. If Diaspora does not force any changes to their interface, but instead allows users to theme and customize them, then there are a few million more potential users. As far as how long it will take before Diaspora has all of the features that Facebook has, I personally believe that it will take less time. The technology is more established than it was when Facebook first started, and they were still trying to figure out what would work, what wouldn't, and how they can make money. In Diaspora's instance however, there are quite a few case studies (Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare) that they can look towards for inspiration. People are in general a bit more open, and engaged on social networks than they were when Facebook was founded (Facebook after all was first limited to college students only). Plus, there are the untold number of developers who would be willing to contribute towards the project when it is finally open sourced (just look at how many backers they got, and that was money, not code). Phew, this comment turned into more of an essay, but I think it sums up my views, and hopes on Diaspora. Agree or disagree, thanks for reading at least :)