WHAT IS DIASPORA*? Bizarro Facebook?

Diaspora* is an open-source Facebook alternative that comes in the form of a distributed network. The project is in the alpha stages, and although it faces many challenges, it is worth keeping an eye on.

Sometime last year I heard about a group of students at NYU who got enough funding through Kickstarter to start working on an open-source alternative to Facebook, called Diaspora*. In June I decided to sign up for an invitation at joindiaspora.com.

It wasn’t until September that I heard from Diaspora* again. The team sent me an email reassuring me that they had not forgotten about their promise to invite me to their social network.

• We’ve created software that lets you set up and run your own social network on your own “pod” (or server) and connect your network to the larger Diaspora* ecosystem.

True to their word, the network runs on separate individually-owned servers called pods.You wouldn’t necessarily log into the social network at the same URL as your  Diaspora* friends. You might log into Diaspora* at diasp.org, diasp0ra.ca, diaspod.fr, free-beer.ch, or one of over 70 pods listed at podupti.me.

You can even own a pod if you want. The Diaspora*  software is free to download, and then you can host it on your own server. In theory, this is great. If they pull it off, they could democratize social media and give users of social media substantially more control over their personal data.

It will be interesting to see where Diaspora* goes. It isn’t the first open source distributed social network. Cunity, Appleseed, and Friendica are all open source initiatives that have sought to remedy the privacy problems associated with social networking. What makes Diaspora* different is that they seemed to have Facebook in their sights from the early stages, and they got a lot of support for that very reason.

How It Started

Thanks to Henrik Moltke for the photo

In February 2010 Ilya Zhitomirskiy, Dan Grippi, Max Salzberg and Raphael Sofaer attended a lecture by free software activist, Eben Moglen about threats to privacy posed by commercial Internet services. The four students were inspired by Moglen to conceive the Diaspora* project, which secured over $200,000 of funding on Kickstarter. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg even donated money, claiming that he saw a little of himself in the students.

The project generated a lot of buzz, and since it launched its consumer alpha release on November 23, 2010, over 200,000 users have joined the largest server. A lot of people have gotten behind the idea of improving privacy in social networking, and believe that the members of the Diaspora* team are the ones to do it.

The team has quite a few challenges to confront:

• Its competitors have no monetary cost to the user.
• Its competitors have revenue streams other than donations.
• Without owning a pod, the Diaspora* user has little more assurance of privacy than with a Facebook or Google Plus account.
• Setting up your own pod is difficult and requires technical knowledge.
• Because of the nature of the AGPL free software license, and the difficulty finding a way to monetize this software, developers have little incentive to work on the Diaspora* code other than the betterment of humanity.

Given all of the above, it’s little wonder there hasn’t been a huge influx of users. To have friends on Diaspora* you either have to convince your own friends to join, or you have to befriend strangers. Needless to say, for most people this is not yet an effective social networking tool.

Distributed Social Networks

In October I got an email from Diaspora* asking for $25. I promptly deleted it from my inbox. Finally in early December, I got an invitation to join the network, and I did. I had a look at my profile, but couldn’t figure out where to go next. I then forgot about my Diaspora* account for several weeks.

Now that I’m in business, I have think about my presence in social media. It’s part of my business to know about social networking sites, and to understand exactly how they work. It was this need that prompted me to have a closer look at my Diaspora* account and learn more about the project.

The idea of a distributed social network is great. However, it seems to me that the structure and architecture of Diaspora* don’t provide users with a tangible incentive to host their own pods. Privacy is the only promise, and that simply doesn’t allow the network to grow in today’s online culture. It’s a lot of effort to set up a pod when Facebook is offering the same service at no monetary cost to the user.

If pods were easy to install, and customizable with widgets and themes, this project could go somewhere. One incentive to use Diaspora* aside from the privacy and intellectual property advantages could be the abililty to easily customize your network for your own purposes.

We could see arts collectives, business networking groups, community clubs and all kinds of organizations forming meaningful pods, not only for the privacy features but because the network would better suit their needs. This would also make it easier for developers or pod owners to monetize the software by marketing it to a specific niche. Build in some customizability and the network will start growing on its own. The advantages of a distributed social network could extend beyond privacy.

Privacy

As it stands, Diaspora* seems to be sticking with the privacy angle. If that’s what they’re selling, they have some convincing to do. When the code first shipped, many security failures came to light. The source code was actually so ridden with security problems that users weren’t assured of privacy at all. The problems referred to have since been patched, but Diaspora* could be in the alpha stage of development for a while.

Undoubtedly, the project has come a long way since the code was released, but the question remains whether Diaspora* understands that it has a hole to dig itself out of in terms of reputation. Before the network can grow, it has to show the public that its commitment to privacy still stands.

Even if you do trust the folks at Diaspora* the fact remains that the only way to take full advantage of the privacy features is to set up you’re own pod. This requires you to understand a lot of technical things that most people don’t understand, and it’s unlikely that you’d do so if you weren’t already supportive of the Diapsora* community.

That community may be ready to embrace the safe haven promised by four NYU math students, but the world at large isn’t. To outsiders, especially those who are less technically minded, the project has some serious brand identity issues. It’s hard to get a handle on who they are, what they represent, and what their intentions are.

Where’s It Going?

If the team didn’t have enough on their plates already, collaborator Ilya Zhitomirskiy apparently committed suicide in San Francisco in November, 2011. After this devestating loss, it is commendable that the Diaspora* team continues striving to acheive its vision. They have a noble ambition, and they’ve accomplished some remarkable feats.

The problem with the network from the public’s perspective is going to be usability. There’s no incentive to join Diaspora* if it’s just offering what other social networks already offer. The privacy benefits of joining someone else’s pod are dubious if you don’t know the owner of that pod, and so a mass exodus from the major social networks seems unlikely any time in the near future.

Still, how can you do anything but root for these guys? Their passion is genuine. They’ve devoted their lives to making this software, and they’re giving it away to everyone for free. I hope that Diaspora* lives up to its full potential and turns a new page in the history of social networks.