I was very jazzed about it, but didn't donate, back when it was being kickstarted. Whether or not they were intending to, the publicity quickly took on a flavor

I was very jazzed about it, but didn't donate, back when it was being kickstarted. Whether or not they were intending to, the publicity quickly took on a flavor of "these wunderkinds are going to save us from FB!" I couldn't say whether that was intentional or not, but the day they first released their code to the public, I read through some of it and was singularly unimpressed, and basically gave up on the project because it looked like their first Rails app, and seemed very insecure. I don't know how many developers lost confidence in them that day, but I certainly did. The punk rock ethic is great for getting things done, but some things are big projects and need to be undertaken with a degree of care and commitment, and those kinds of projects are not conducive environments for all-cylinders-firing wunderkinds. I think a takeaway better model is: produce a beta or a demo that you bring to Kickstarter and ask for double or quadruple the money you think you'll need (because you will). Either make the code open-source last after it's fully developed, or make sure the code you bring to the demo is secure and unembarrassing. Even though I disagree with the idea, I think Light Table is hitting most of the notes Diaspora missed: Chris showed up with a compelling demo, raised way more money than a kid would deem necessary (and then more still with YC) and at least originally was going to make the code available last. He also updates frequently and people are using the software today, which never really seemed to happen with Diaspora.