With the recent issue trending on the web over privacy, the open source social media, Diaspora that was founded by four students Dan Grippi, Michael Salzberg, Raphael Sofaer and Ilya Zhitomirskiy in mid 2010 with freshly minted University Diplomas from New York University has issued out its developer’s release on their website (www.joindiaspora.com)
It’s coming at a time when Facebook is facing serious criticisms from its users’. The over 500 million users’ behemoth has faltered on issues pertaining to privacy and Diaspora, a ‘rebel’ social networking platform is offering a breath of fresh air in that regards. The anti-Facebook social networking site to be, last week unveiled some more details about what their project will look like. Features so far include the ability to share photos enjoy a degree of encrypted traffic, and in the near future-hopefully data portability and Facebook integration. According to Nicole Ferraro of Internet Evolution, “The heavy focus for Diaspora, seems to be on community for a couple of reasons. First, it’s an open source project and second, Diaspora is supposed to be all about the user”.
According to Diaspora’s Blog, “This is now a community project and development is open to anyone with the technical expertise who shares the vision of a social network that puts users in control “. It sounds very nice and I want it to go beyond rhetoric, but a lot of things sounds nice and in writing this, I can’t but think on what it’s claiming to be according to Nicole Ferraro, “is sort of an idealized version of a social network from a consumer perspective”.
Reactions have been generated across the web with Social Media enthusiasts airing their views about the new phenomenon. A Web Developer, Arnold Kurtz says “If Diaspora really wants to gain interest by ‘elitists’, they should start out their system by ‘invitation only’. Make some sort of public announcement that they only want the world’s best and brightest. Who would resist an invitation like that little ego booster? Then to keep the illusion of exclusivity alive, they would reject people who were invited by friends and have an appeals process to let them in anyway-sort of how the Hippie communes with their recruited convents in the 60’s”.
Realistically, from a Web Developer viewpoint, the pre-alpha code is so insecure and a lot of security researchers have criticized it too. This is nicely summed up in an article by PC Magazine. Diaspora might have users’ best intentions at heart, but it may also be trying to fix something that is working too well.
Ubong Udoh
Chief Executive Officer, SYSPERA
+234 (0) 704 119 06 64
udoh.ubong@syspera.com
www.syspera.com
Follow me on Twitter on: www.twitter.com/ubongudoh
