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A lot of people have related to Diaspora as if it's a startup, but it isn't. It's a free software project, and the rules and expectations are very different.

tlrobinson 15y ago
By acknowledging being put on the Top Ten Startups of 2011 is Diaspora saying they see themselves as a startup? Also, being a startup and free software project isn't mutually exclusive.
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  I'm sure they do see themselves that way, although I don't know if I'd take that as reason to think of them as such. Your business model when your base package is free and decentralized is very different than when it is proprietary. Diaspora cannot operate like a closed startup challenging Facebook would. In fact, and this is from my experience with building Appleseed, the main difference is in who you are trying to convince to use your software. With startups, it's users. With free software, it's administrators. Like I've written before, it's administrators choosing to set up a decentralized social networking node that will make or break Diaspora (or Appleseed or OneSocialWeb, etc). And when your target market is administrators, any related business venture will use a B2B model, something very different than the kind of B2C startup framework we're used to putting things in.
mikeryan 15y ago
These lines can be easily blurred, think Red Hat, Ubuntu, Twiki, any of the current crop of Hadoop or NoSQL based startups...
bradly 15y ago
I was at a conference a couple weeks ago and the Diaspora team was there talking about how they are in the process of talking with vc's.
- thomasgerbe 15y ago
  They also got around 250k in funding.
  - ohwaitnvm 15y ago
    $190k[1] before Kickstarter took its cut (5%, plus an estimated 3-5% from credit card fees[2]), which conservatively puts it at more like $175k. Also, that was a full year ago. If the guys decided to pay themselves a year's salary out of that (and there were no taxes and other fees to pay), that's ~$44k/person. 1. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-p... 2. http://www.kickstarter.com/start http://www.kickstarter.com/start (bottom) Edit: I forgot to mention, there was a fraudulent $10k donation included in the 200k, that's why I'm starting that much lower.

tlrobinson 15y ago

By acknowledging being put on the Top Ten Startups of 2011 is Diaspora saying they see themselves as a startup? Also, being a startup and free software project isn't mutually exclusive.

michaelchisari 15y ago
I'm sure they do see themselves that way, although I don't know if I'd take that as reason to think of them as such. Your business model when your base package is free and decentralized is very different than when it is proprietary. Diaspora cannot operate like a closed startup challenging Facebook would. In fact, and this is from my experience with building Appleseed, the main difference is in who you are trying to convince to use your software. With startups, it's users. With free software, it's administrators. Like I've written before, it's administrators choosing to set up a decentralized social networking node that will make or break Diaspora (or Appleseed or OneSocialWeb, etc). And when your target market is administrators, any related business venture will use a B2B model, something very different than the kind of B2C startup framework we're used to putting things in.

mikeryan 15y ago

These lines can be easily blurred, think Red Hat, Ubuntu, Twiki, any of the current crop of Hadoop or NoSQL based startups...

bradly 15y ago

I was at a conference a couple weeks ago and the Diaspora team was there talking about how they are in the process of talking with vc's.

thomasgerbe 15y ago
They also got around 250k in funding.
- ohwaitnvm 15y ago
  $190k[1] before Kickstarter took its cut (5%, plus an estimated 3-5% from credit card fees[2]), which conservatively puts it at more like $175k. Also, that was a full year ago. If the guys decided to pay themselves a year's salary out of that (and there were no taxes and other fees to pay), that's ~$44k/person. 1. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-p... 2. http://www.kickstarter.com/start http://www.kickstarter.com/start (bottom) Edit: I forgot to mention, there was a fraudulent $10k donation included in the 200k, that's why I'm starting that much lower.