Social Freedom
The Diaspora Project, a fun and creative community for social freedom; http://eicker.at/SocialFreedom
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Gerrit Eicker
Diaspora’s First Year
Diaspora: from 4 to >100K users, from 0 to >7K commits, from alpha to beta soon? http://eicker.at/DiasporasFirstYear
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Gerrit Eicker
Diasporial: “[September 15th] is a very special day for the Diaspora project. It has been exactly one year since the guys released the Diaspora source code! For a year now, people have been able to contribute to this project and set up pods. And so they did! Till date, 7371 commits have been made by the contributors and the four founders. In only a years time, the amount of Diaspora users has grown from 4 to over 100.000, spread over lots of pods! … It is rumoured that Diaspora will hit beta in November, on its Alpha release anniversary.”
Diaspora: “We know that if you’re not a contributor and don’t follow us on Github, it’s hard to see Diaspora grow and evolve. Now that Diaspora is moving into its second year and a new phase of development, here are some numbers on the progress we’ve made. … Our developer community is growing. Diaspora has had over 100 unique code contributors and countless others have edited our wiki and updated Diaspora’s translations in over 51 languages. We have over 4,600 followers and over 840 forks, which means that tons of developers are checking out our code. That makes us the sixth most popular project on GitHub, right behind great open source projects like JQuery, Ruby On Rails, and Node, just to name a few.”
Diaspora: “There’s been big news in the social networking world recently, and we can’t help but be pleased with the impact our work has had on two of the biggest developments. We’re proud that Google+ imitated one of our core features, aspects, with their circles. And now Facebook is at last moving in the right direction with user control over privacy, a move spurred not just by Google+, but more fundamentally by you and tens of thousands of community members, as well as hundreds of thousands of people who’ve lined up to try Diaspora* – that is, by all of us who’ve stood up to say ‘there has to be a better way.’ We’re making a difference already.”
RWW: “There are things about Diaspora that still are unique among its competitors. Not only is it open-source, it’s decentralized and distributed. Users are encouraged to set up their own servers. But these are not features for normal human users. In that category, the social networking superpowers seem to have Diaspora cornered. … Diaspora has been called the anti-Facebook for its strong privacy stance, and it had ‘aspects’ before anyone knew about Google Plus and its circles. … If Google Plus has taught us anything, it’s that normal people don’t feel like leaving the social networks where they already feel settled. … Is there anything Diaspora can do? I think so, but it’s a departure from it’s current incarnation, which is an awful lot like Google Plus (or vice versa, or whatever). It’s unrealistic to expect a mass exodus from one social network that works to another of which no one has ever heard. Diaspora’s potential is in its ability to syndicate to our other services (currently Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr) while still allowing us to own our data. … If Diaspora is built as a publishing platform that lets us own our content and direct it to our existing networks – and especially if we can read from them, too – it would be an awesome, welcome tool that even Dave Winer could love. But if the launch of Google Plus wasn’t splashy enough to start a mass Facebook exodus, a later launch of a service that looks the same is not going to do it.”
TNW: “Diaspora has never pitched itself as direct competitor to the likes of Facebook – more an alternative model for how social networks could be designed. However, it’s gained a reputation from observers as ‘that quirky Facebook alternative that never quite made it.’ Whether there’s a need or desire for its product or not, it seems there’s life in the Diaspora team yet.”
Some ‘historical’ Diaspora posts here on Wir sprechen Online:
- Diaspora rockets on Kickstarter, 15.05.2010
- Diaspora gets funded with $200K, 03.06.2010
- Diaspora’s first month and first progress, 04.07.2010
- Diaspora works! 27.08.2010
- Diaspora Alpha, the developer release, 16.09.2010
- Joindiaspora.com opens its doors in private alpha, 24.11.2010
- Diaspora summary, 20.07.2011
Gerrit Eicker 20:54 on 29. September 2011 Permalink |
Diaspora: “We are happy to announce that DiasporaFoundation.org is now live. DiasporaFoundation.org will be the home of the Diaspora* project, a place where our community can share information, learn about cool new features, and information about where they can get an account. – This new blog replaces blog.joindiaspora.com (WordPress FTW), and will be updated with news from the community and announcements from the core team.”
Diaspora: “Social freedom. – Ever wanted to to share something with just a certain group of people? Diaspora* pioneered Aspects, the original system for sharing things with just the people you want. Of course, you can still tell the whole world too, if you want to. – Diaspora* lets you stay connected with your friends, even if they’re not on Diaspora* yet. Simply connect your account to other major services, then use Diaspora* as your home base to post to your profiles on these other services too. Diaspora* currently supports cross-posting to your Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts, with more to come soon. … Own your data – Now you don’t have to settle for having your data on someone else’s server. Since Diaspora is completely free software, you can grab the code and host it wherever you want. We’re constantly making it easier for individuals to host their own pods on Diaspora*. – Coming soon: Download all of your data in standard formats that can be used in other places. – Get started on a community pod and then move all of your social data to a pod you control. Diaspora*’s distributed design means that you will never have to sacrifice control of your data to stay connected.”
Diaspora: “Join the movement. – The future of the social web starts with you. – Diaspora* is already in the top 2% of all open source projects ever. The codebase has received over 800 forks, over 5000 followers on GitHub, and over 300 Grassroots Volunteers… Open source is about individuality, transparency, creativity, and destiny. It is about having an idea, and making it reality. Diaspora* was founded to fulfill a passion for fun, and for making the Internet a better place. Open source is what enables us to change the world, for ourselves, and let our friends across the web benefit from our exploration. … We all make Diaspora*. We might not know you just yet, but we think you’d be a great fit for building the future of the web. You’re fantastic, and you’re ready to change the world. Contributing to Diaspora* comes in all different shapes and sizes. Whether you’re a user helping us find bugs, providing feedback on our mailing lists, or contributing code or design, we need you.”
Diaspora: “Roadmap – These are things that are in our plan, but haven’t yet come to the front of the priority queue. If you’re looking for a feature to implement, and any of these strike your fancy, come talk to us in IRC first. We may have thoughts about how we want these implemented, and we can help you get started…
Diaspora: “We’re building the future we want to see – a new social web that keeps you in control of your data, giving you the freedom to do what you want and have fun. We’re a tiny core team of developers working our tails off, and we’re also a huge community effort, with more than 150 people having contributed code to our open-source software, hundreds of others engaged in community organizing and spreading the word, and thousands of people providing feedback and financial support. We can’t do this without you. Please give what you can. Thank you.“