Diaspora*

By James Sheldon on May 14th, 2010

Are there even more grumblings about Facebook that I’m unaware of?

You have to take complaints for what they are–regardless of how good something might be, people will complain about it. Apparently the new issues with privacy settings are bugging some people over at the FB? I dunno.

I have close to a thousand friends, acquaintances and strangers on “the face,” and I’ve yet to hear much of it. Regardless, there’s about to be a new ship sailing in the social networking sea. You know–because we need another.

Diaspora*. (Die as’ por uh) Are you familiar with the term? Most frequently, it’s used in the field of religious scholars to refer to the ancient Jewish people who scattered, or were displaced/exiled outside of Palestine after Babylonian captivity. In the Greek, is means a scattering of seeds (getting warmer). It is also used to describe any group migration, or flight from a country.

Boom! Take that Facebook–that’s the goal. Mass migration and a scattering of seeds.

So, what exactly is it? Right now, a page is available at joindiaspora.com. There, you can learn a little bit more about the project. Ultimately, what you have are four talented programming students from NYU, who actively sought 100k in donations, and quickly received it. This allows them the ability to create a self-controlled, social networking environment, based on the use of of “seeds.” From the team at Diaspora*:

Diaspora* aims to be a distributed network, where totally separate computers connect to each other directly, will let us connect without surrendering our privacy. We call these computers ‘seeds’. A seed is owned by you, hosted by you, or on a rented server.

You see what I see, right? Issues of complexity. Facebook is easy, and even with its issues, John Q. Public can use it. While Diaspora* is a wonderful idea, I don’t see it gaining traction without becoming a legitimate, technological trend. However, with that being said, it’s a beautiful effort that these four, young entrepreneurs are setting forth! I’m hopeful for simplistic execution.

Facebook could use some non-slutty competition (yeah, I’m talkin’ ’bout you, MySpace). Competition that is relevant and usable by those who are computer literate.