A while back I remembered reading about this app, Diaspora, that was going to make waves. I didn’t hear much from them after the initial modest hype, but today I got a welcome e-mail, saying I could alpha test.
From what I understood (and what wikipedia says):
Diaspora was intended to address privacy concerns related to centralized social networks by allowing users set up their own server (or “pod”) to host content; pods can then interact to share status updates, photographs, and other social data. It allows its users to host their data with a traditional web host, a cloud-based host, an ISP, or a friend. The framework, which is being built on Ruby on Rails, is free software and can be experimented with by external developers.
However, after having a look at it in alpha form, I’m not exactly sure if they decided to throw that concept out, because it looks and feels remarkably like chime.in meets Google Plus, meets a little bit of Twitter. To be honest, it doesn’t feel much like Facebook at all which I thought was the original market they were going for.
But, I’m willing to be objective.
Here are some screenshots I’ve gathered:
First I was asked to link my Facebook account and pick a few hashtags to follow. This is the part that reminds me a bit of chime.in, following topics.
Here’s the main platform look:
Impressions?
I can’t say I’m overwhelmed, but okay, it’s in alpha. I also have to say the name reminds me of some kind of biological attack. Maybe the it’s the “spora” which sounds like “Spores.” My main concern with Diaspora is that, much like chime.in, it will struggle to gain traction. Back when I heard about them, there weren’t many competing networks, but I wonder if they may have just taken too long to get this one out of the gate. One thing I do know, to get people to adopt with some many other options out there, they better have something spectacular. If they want to be the life of the social network party they better have brought the beer.
What Do You Think?
From a personal perspective, I have to say it’s getting hard to keep up with all these networks. We have to carefully think about what we integrate into MarketMeSuite, and with so many networks popping up it’s often tough to figure out which ones have the most value to our users. Is there room for yet another social network? Will you be trying Diaspora?
Beer Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raindog/6401425737/
