{"id":3091,"date":"2011-09-12T22:46:25","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T05:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talesfromthe.net\/jon\/?p=3091"},"modified":"2011-09-12T22:46:25","modified_gmt":"2011-09-13T05:46:25","slug":"early-draft-in-progress-what-diaspora-and-everybody-else-can-learn-from-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2011\/09\/12\/early-draft-in-progress-what-diaspora-and-everybody-else-can-learn-from-google\/","title":{"rendered":"What Diaspora (and everybody else) can learn from Google+ (DRAFT)"},"content":{"rendered":"

DRAFT!\u00c2\u00a0 WORK IN PROGRESS!\u00c2\u00a0 FEEDBACK WELCOME!<\/span><\/p>\n


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\"\"<\/a>Most people won’t have even heard of it. Diaspora is an up and coming social network which is getting a lot more attention in some circles in the wake of Google+’s ‘real names’ policy.<\/p>\n

Users are climbing on board after being tipped off that there’s a network just like Google+, only without having anything to do with Google, where you can be who you want to be, how you want to be, and still retain full ownership of everything you put there.<\/p>\n

— Rebecca Baker, Diaspora still trying to reinvent social networks with open source<\/a>, TechEye<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds great!\u00c2\u00a0 And while the Diaspora team still hasn’t sent out invites to the thousands of people who have signed up, some “pods” allow open signups.\u00c2\u00a0 So I set up a profile<\/a> on http:\/\/diasp.org to check it out … and my, it looked familiar.<\/p>\n

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This weekend I received an invitation through Facebook to join Diaspora. I had tried to join Diaspora last year when I learned about their Kickstarter success while writing my book on crowdsourcing, but I couldn’t get in. So of course I was curious and went immediately to sign up.<\/p>\n

And then I was puzzled. Diaspora looked just like…Google+. Or did Google+ look just like Diaspora?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aliza Sherman, Google+ meet Diaspora – or maybe you know them already?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yeah really.\u00c2\u00a0 Dan Tynan, in Will the real anti-Facebook please stand up?<\/a>, comments that “Given that G+ emerged some seven months after<\/em> Diaspora went public, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing Google was taking notes.”\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the basic idea of having Aspects (in Diaspora) or Circles (in Google+) to organize your acquaintances isn’t new,* but G+’s web layout sure looks a lot like Diaspora’s.<\/p>\n

What’s that they say about the sincerest form of flattery<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The opportunity’s still there …<\/h2>\n

Although we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been quiet for a while, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been working hard, head-down.<\/p>\n

We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re thrilled to say we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve built the first stage of a new social web, one better than what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s out there today: a place where each of us owns our own information, where each person controls his or her own privacy, where no-one is a product, and where we all control our own destinies.<\/p>\n

— Maxwell, Daniel, Ilya, Sarah, Yosem and Peter, Diaspora* is making a difference<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a crucial time for Diaspora right now, in a way that’s very hard for people who haven’t ever been involved in a startup to relate to.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody expected progress to be more rapid.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 There are a lot of questions about security.\u00c2\u00a0 The team’s been so busy that communications haven’t been great (although they’ve improved recently, with Yosem Companys taking on the role as Diaspora’s “chief evangelist”). \u00c2\u00a0 The money’s run out and they’re still in alpha. And now a major corporation with deep pockets is introducing a somewhat-similar product that’s much easier to use.\u00c2\u00a0 Gulp.<\/p>\n

Looking at it more positively, though, Google+ has validated some of Diaspora’s key design choice.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The user base seems fairly enthusiastic despite the limitations of the alpha release. \u00c2\u00a0 And the nymwars<\/a> and Eric Schmidt’s creepy characterization of G+ as an “identity system” underlines the need for the new social web the Diaspora team is talking about.\u00c2\u00a0 So the huge opportunity is still there.<\/p>\n

And not just for Diaspora.\u00c2\u00a0 Sites like Hibe (whose Facets play the same role as Apects and Circles) are also seeing a lot of interest in the aftermath.\u00c2\u00a0 Wikipedia lists over 40 distributed social network projects<\/a> — including Friendika, which inter-operates with Diaspora as well as Twitter, Facebook, and others.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Google+ presents a great learning opportunity for all of these projects.<\/p>\n

Ten things to learn<\/h2>\n

If Google Plus has taught us anything …<\/p>\n

Jon Mitchell, How Can Diaspora Help Us in a Facebook and Google Plus World?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last week I started asking people what they thought Diaspora could learn from Google+.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Since then Kathy, Helena, Greg, Amy, Stephen, Gretchen, Dan, Paul, Andreas, David, Cindy, Geeky, powlsy, Drew, Terry, Sylvia, Edward, Anne, Hrafn, Shiyiya, Cavlec, Wiring, Madeleine, @PRC_Amber, @blakereid and many others came up with new suggestions and refined the list in discussions on Google+, Dreamwidth, Diaspora, and Twitter.\u00c2\u00a0 Thanks to everybody who got involved!<\/p>\n

Over the course of the discussion, I took a couple of polls on Google+, and both times the same recommendation came out on top:<\/p>\n