Well here’s a project that’s been getting some buzz, this week, as our favorite social network Facebook is pilloried for going rogue. They recently opened up your personal information to anyone who can embed HTML.
This tendency they have to make use of your personal data for their own purposes should not surprise anyone who’s been paying attention. But that’s the deal. They enable your acquaintances to get back in touch with you, and in return, they eavesdrop for information that might be useful.
So here’s where Diaspora comes in. The concept is half FriendFeed (now held hostage by Facebook) and half LimeWire. The idea is that you aggregate and host your own personal data on your own web server (or “seed”) then hook it up peer-to-peer style with your acquaintances. Hopefully, since you control the site and also the copyright to your own content … all will be well.
Where is the money coming from? It turns out that these guys are having no problem raising the cash.
A Little More About The Project
A seed will not just be all your existing networks put together, though. Decentralizing lets us reconstruct our “social graphs” so that they belong to us. Our real social lives do not have central managers, and our virtual lives do not need them. Friend another seed and the two of you can synchronize over a direct and secure connection instead of through a superfluous hub.
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