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Diaspora: An Overdue Update
- vegashacker 16y agoWhat do they mean by, "Since the 1st of August is nearly over..."?
- naner 16y agoSarcasm. They probably promised an update on the 1st of August.
- starnix17 16y agoI know most people always comment on how the Diaspora project is destined to fail, and they're probably right. However, there's no denying how awesome it is that a few college kids can raise over $100,000 like this to build their project. Even if the project fails like most people say, I imagine it will be a positive experience for the four guys that worked on it.
- jlgosse 16y agoIf Diaspora fails, it will have less to do with the awesomeness of the project, and more to do with the lack of everyone's friends actually using Diaspora. I figure it will be a huge hit among geeks like us, but then will fall out of usage due to the lack of updates from people that matter, like friends and family. I use Facebook for staying in touch with the mostly non-technical people in my life who actually use Facebook, and that's what will end up swaying most users (like myself) back towards Facebook in a relatively short period of time.
- troyk 16y agoNon techie friends and family pay a lot of attention to what techie guy does. I remember using google when everyone else was using yahoo, and soon all my friends and family started to use google over yahoo. In 2006, I switched to mac. Half my non-techie friends and family now have macs. Trends, possibly, but they'll try it if they know you like it and if it is better, they are sold.
- StavrosK 16y agoBoth of your examples have no network effects, which is why it's very easy for people to switch. Try switching to a different IM, for example. You won't switch if you don't have anyone to talk to on it, and you won't have anyone to talk to on it if you don't switch. Google Talk and its Gmail integration did wonders for Jabber, thankfully.
- huntero 16y agoIn the cases you mentioned, it was easy for the techie guy to recommend Google or Macs to friends or family because they were far better products at the time. I take recommendations I give to people very seriously, and I simply wouldn't recommend to any non-technical person to move away from Facebook to a platform that has none/few of their friends on it.
- pclark 16y agoWow, spending $10k on UX this early seems like an interesting move
- SoftwareMaven 16y agoThat, IMO, is one of the best things they could spend the money on. This project is going to suffer from being a technologists dream toy. By bringing in outside help to focus on who the end-user is, they have a hope of overcoming this and making it usable for mortals. UX should be the first dollars spent on a consumer product, not the last.
- pbhjpbhj 16y agoThe demise of Google Wave must have been a hard story for them to read.
- jacquesm 16y agoI'm actually really happy to hear they did that, even though I can't see any of the results (they're far too secretive about what's going on behind the scenes, besides these blog postings). It means they have a clear idea of what they can do, and more importantly about what they can't do. So blowing some money on an expert in a field for which they don't have expertise is actually a really good sign.
- tswicegood 16y agoIt's sad that they didn't just tack onto an existing project like Pinax and add functionality to it to handle the federated system. There was no need to reinvent the wheel, the existing ones just needed a little truing.
- jacquesm 16y agoAnything but pinax, please... I had a really good look at that and I did not like much what I saw (that was a while ago, but still). Do you have a specific reason for suggesting that over appleseed (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), which I think would be a far better fit?
- pvg 16y agoSo, took some UI classes, ate some bagels, gave some talks, met some interesting people, off to Burning Man. All wonderful things but none of them actually say or show much about what they have got implemented and working.
- thaumaturgy 16y agoThat's a pretty horrible way to summarize someone's efforts. I'll resist the urge to describe pinboard.in the same way.
- peterbraden 16y agoIt's harsh but accurate. Not really deserving of your comment.
- DTrejo 16y agoBut would you say it them in person?
- pvg 16y agoI'll resist the urge to describe pinboard.in the same way. We're always delighted to receive feedback!
- lotusleaf1987 16y agoWhy don't they use a sans serif font? Sans serif fonts are just more legible and easier to read.
- reneherse 16y agoCareful youngin, don't equate conformity with professionalism. The text is quite legible and the serif font makes a nice counterpoint to the rest of the page.
- lotusleaf1987 16y agoIt's just not consistent since other parts of the page are in sans serif. I just prefer sans serif, I guess. Serif fonts remind me of cursive. Sans serif fonts seem more objective. For example, when you write "dog" you don't necessarily want the word to look like a dog.
- ugh 16y agoNearly all available evidence suggests that whether the font has serifs or not makes no difference with respect to readability on the screen. That you think of sans-serif as more objective is actually quite funny. Newspapers, books and magazines – i.e. pretty much everything we read until a few years ago – used nearly exclusively a serif font for all their body text. Now it’s serif that sticks out.
- natep 16y agoI totally did not notice it was a serif font, and I didn't turn on Readability, either (which I do for most things, especially if some designer tried to make it look cool)
- jlgbecom 16y agoAppleseed is a lot farther along, and has been releasing steadily this whole summer. It's years ahead of Diaspora, they've been putting out a new release every month, and they already have a bunch of nodes already running their software. http://opensource.appleseedproject.org http://opensource.appleseedproject.org I think by the time Sep 15th rolls around, Appleseed will be on it's fourth release this summer.
- viraptor 16y agoI hope they handle releases better than Appleseed. Sure - technically they might be ahead, but look at the page you linked from the user's perspective. It already exists, there's no buzz about it, you cannot register without an invite (also, there is no "register" link - there's strange "local" and "remote"). So when they "open to public": 1. who's going to notice? 2. with the current user-friendliness, who's going to care?
- jlgbecom 16y agoAppleseed is already open to the public for whoever wants to download the source and install it (it took me about 2 min on a shared host, really easy). You can then disable invites on your node by going into the administrator and setting on "use invites" to "no". But in any case, they give out invites like water, you just have to email invite@appleseedproject.org. Since that's the beta testing site, they're looking for beta testers, not casual users. Diaspora does have publicity on it's side, I'll give it that. We'll see how user-friendly it's first release is in September.
- viraptor 16y agoI think you lost the typical user at "whoever wants to download the source". Facebook users don't want to do that. They also don't understand "download" or "source" in many cases. They can click the blue icon in the "internet window". (yeah - I know that's not as true nowadays as it was at the beginning of y2k, but I'm trying to make a point here...)
- peterbraden 16y agoThey don't seem to get open source. Open source is having code available so people can contribute and review, not simply dumping some files at a specified date.
- boucher 16y agoSometimes that's true. Sometimes the right approach for a project still just getting off the ground is not letting people in for a while. It's easier to realize a vision when you've already got something concrete to point to. Otherwise you often waste time arguing over what color to paint the shed.
- blantonl 16y agoSometimes there is another team out there that knows a better method to determining what color to paint the shed. As an open source developer, you are more than welcome to disregard feedback regarding your code provided it is publicly available, but when you don't make it available, how can it be called open source?
- Unseelie 16y agoIt can't be. Until they make it available. Hence the verb usage of Open-sourced, an action they intend to do to the project. That is, they intend to change it from closed, and very private, to open.
- there 16y agoyou should tell that to the android team at google.
- quizbiz 16y agoWhy is their logo an asterisk when it seems their whole idea is that they are the social network without a catch? The asterick at the end of their name instantly makes me want to scroll down to read the fine print.
- 3pt14159 16y agoI always thought it was intended as a "all" symbol. All your privacy, all the control, all these different apps plugging in. SELECT * FROM user_preferences; -- type thing
- Unseelie 16y agoBlow a seeding dandelion, and you get diaspora. Which is why the dandelion is their logo, and the asterisk is a very close approximation of that form
- techiferous 16y agoI wouldn't call it a logo as much as a placeholder for one.
- wolfrom 16y agoI really hope their API will come soon; I think the best chance they have of user adoption will be based on the creativity of API developers bridging the gaps between Diaspora and other services. If users can communicate between Diaspora nodes and other social networks, at least on a basic level, they could see enough migration to make their efforts worthwhile.
- icarus_drowning 16y agoI too think this will be key. If I can "remote control" Facebook through Diaspora, I will switch in a heartbeat. If I can't experience the same level of interaction as Facebook with the same number of people, I'll still probably switch, but gradually stop using it, I'm sure.
- jeebusroxors 16y agoWhat is the point of that? I'm not into the whole social network thing but isn't the point of Diaspora to be able to control your own "private" information? If you post to Facebook from Diaspora wouldn't you be giving up the only real reason to switch?
- v21 16y agoI don't see why. While everyone you want to talk to is on Facebook you talk Facebook. When a group of friends you want to privately share with is largely on Diaspora, you use Diaspora. Diaspora's focus on making setting privacy levels unthinkingly sounds like it'd be a real useful thing to have hooked into Facebook [for people who give a shit about privacy, but not enough to fight Facebook settings afresh each post]. Embrace, extend and ...
- patrickaljord 16y agoTheir API will be OStatus, same as status.net and google buzz, to be more specific: pubsubhubbub, salmon, activity streams and webfinger.
- GBKS 16y agoGreat to hear that they have a solid team of advisors and that they are putting the user experience first. With open-source I am always a bit concerned that design and experience are secondary. Diaspora has a great story going on right now, I hope the product will continue that with the same spirit and capture people's imaginations.
- thisorthat 16y agoSadly I don't think this will take off. So many people rallied over Diaspora calling it the Facebook killer not understanding the true implications. Maybe I am wrong about this but wouldn't the people that want to use this have to download it and host it themselves?
- pkulak 16y agoI still choose to be optimistic. Not getting my hopes up, but I'm still excited to see what they come up with.
- pepijndevos 16y agoOne might argue that all those other OStatus network are way ahead, but I never read _their_ updates on HN, so Diaspora has at least a lot of buzz around it and thus the potential to get a user base faster than all the others.
- famousactress 16y agoI worry. The whole update reminded me of when I move out of an apartment and think I've got one more load to go at 9pm... Just a few lamps and the vacuum. Three loads and four hours later and I'm still almost done.
- paulnelligan 16y agoPersonally, I'd really like to see a way of giving people the ability to share eachothers posts on diaspora (with posters consent of course). Metrics for posts could then be measured and displayed, and a whole new golden age of blogging/microblogging/online-publishing could be born out of this. Also, there's got to be a better way of connecting people of similar interests via groups than the current model. Also also, please consider musicians in the melée!! god speed diaspora. I for one will be joining asap.
- vzmind 16y agoI just clearly support you guys. impatient to read your code and share the good parole in my countries (Farnce-Chile-India).. Your tools, partners and tech choices rock !! Ruby, MongoDB; Github, Pivotal. They give a clear view on what you do and how you work. I am also impatient to see what is that wonderful bot and how do you guys will handle propagation of seeds. Let's work !!.