Diaspora, the “open Facebook alternative” (NYT story for background if you aren’t familiar), has raised Over $170,000 from over 4600 people in just a few weeks. All for an idea.
That’s an impressive start if victory was measured in press coverage, cash, and cool. Here’s the problem: Diaspora has all the wrong things at the wrong time. Competition that kills isn’t pre-announced — it catches an unsuspecting incumbent by surprise.
They have too much money
They’re at $170,000 today (Sunday, May 16, 2010). They’ll likely continue to pile up the donations until their Kickstarter campaign ends 16 days from now. All this money without an actual product is a liability. Money gives them too much time and too much comfort to take on a fast moving incumbent like Facebook. Their cash to code ratio is out of whack. A good enough first version will take longer to produce with $170K than it would have with $0K.
The spotlight is on too early
You want attention after you’re good, not before. Obscurity is your friend when you’re just starting — especially when you don’t even have a product yet. You don’t need the pressure of outside opinion or the press breathing down your neck before you have anything to show. Millions of eyes — including your competition — watching you every step of the way doesn’t help. All this attention is a distraction. Ship, then seek the spotlight.
Expectations are too high
Some people are really pissed at Facebook right now. Those people are looking for a way to channel this negative energy into a movement. Along comes Diaspora. Diaspora becomes their horse in the race. They want that horse to win. They believe it can win. Their unlimited hopes and dreams of the anti-Facebook are transferred to Diaspora. Diaspora becomes everything and anything to anyone who wants to believe. How can anyone deliver on boundless expectations? Diaspora can’t match the fantasy of Diaspora.
I love the underdog, but I fear for the product-less underdog that has all the wrong things at the wrong time.
I think they would have been better off releasing something first. Let people play with it. Let people see that it’s possible. Then drum up press and public support. Until there’s something real to use, fantasy will just get in the way.
Noah Hendrix
on 17 May 10Jason, I completely agree. People are expecting too much out of something that doesn’t exist and I fear will never live up to people’s hopes and dreams.
Érik Escobedo
on 17 May 10That phrase was priceless. Anyway, I know it’s your blog and your opinion and that stuff, but don’t you think it’s kinda bully dooming this poor guys’ idea so early? :(
Doug Coleman
on 17 May 10I could not agree more. I would be willing to bet they don’t even know what to do with $170k right now. I’m mean, how much caffeine and pizza does it take to write code like that? I know, server space costs money, but you won’t need it if your platform is a piece of crap.
That, and the added pressure that has been focused on them, the element of surprise gone and uber-rich/powerful competition makes this whole thing doomed in my opinion.
Liz McLellan
on 17 May 10Also – they are pitching to the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.
Most users on FB are not technical and not all that interested/worried in the dangers posed by Zuckerman’s noxious take on user choice and privacy.
We geeks so often assume – for the weirdest of reasons and without much evidence – that people are like us.
The reason I am on FB – is because the rest of the world is. Unless diaspora creates something that enjoys the network effects that FB has – there is very little reason to go to even the most technically sophisticated secure nerdgasmic set up if EVERYONE I am connected with now and potentially want to be connected to moves to the alternative.
The likelihood of more that 20% of the users to peel off over this to another Geek Island.
It’s really dismaying and I don’t think people understand the problem. Seems to me a class action suit is a better way to spend that money. But oh well.
And yes – I would very much hate to be those 4 dudes right now. They have put themselves in a rotten development position. So you are dead on there.
Michael Chisari
on 17 May 10I wish the Diaspora* team the best of luck, but I don’t envy the position they’re in. I’ve been developing a similar project (Appleseed) for about 6 years now, and it’s pretty far along, but it was not an easy process. Distributed social networking is still cutting edge, and there’s no clear answers for the best way to do anything.
And beyond that, coming up with something that people will use is much more important than getting the perfect technological approach.
It’ll be interesting to revisit the issue in September, and see how far they’ve come. They seem to be usingRuby on Rails, but from all the videos and blogs I’ve read, in terms of their plan, there’s not much out there even to critique.
What I’m hoping is, at the very least, they’ll provide a specific development plan in the next few weeks, so people can get an idea of what to expect.
Michael
Liz McLellan
on 17 May 10“there is very little reason to go to even the most technically sophisticated secure nerdgasmic set up if EVERYONE I am connected with now and potentially want to be connected to moves to the alternative.”
corrected…
if EVERYONE I am connected with now and potentially want to be connected to DOES NOT MOVE to the alternative.
Nick Argall
on 17 May 10I think that Diaspora can indeed be written off as ‘a flash in the pan’ at this stage. Open Facebook alternatives existed before Facebook – DeadJournal is one of the bigger names (that nobody has heard of) in that space.
The reality is that Facebook won vs the competition because it has the attributes that are required to win in that space. It doesn’t have to be ‘the best’ product. It wasn’t the first, and it’s unlikely to be the last, but the Diaspora developers fail to understand that ‘a central hub’ is actually what most people want. Their decentralized model means doing without Facebook’s key commercial advantage, and they haven’t proposed any alternative source of advantage.
Chuck
on 17 May 10Counterpoints:
1) The money’s not going to make them comfortable. It is probably making them very, very uncomfortable in that they have all of these expectations to deliver.
2) They are trying to build something that requires an open-source movement, a technical user-base, and then a mass user-base. Getting some attention and excitement three months out is not too early considering what they’re going to need. Plus, this attention has gotten them connected with some very, very wise and sharp people.
3) It’s not like they’re releasing a movie where expectations can run wild. Expectations are capped at a certain point, and they’re promising a very limited set of features and specs.
Adam King
on 17 May 10Hopefully they’re smart about it, and put that money into a fund that isn’t touched during this initial phase, and instead use it for the costs of setting up that turnkey network and buying more time to iterate on the core system they’ll be developing this summer.
I also hope one of them has a killer usability design sense. I guess they could use this money to hire someone if none of them have that.
Yeah, could be a disaster though.
But until that turnkey hosted system is up, they won’t be bringing over those more instantly judgmental general audience users of Facebook. My mom’s not going to be setting up her own Diaspora server. (My dad… maybe.)
AAK
on 17 May 10How did they raise so much money so quickly? That’s what I can’t understand.
Érik Escobedo
on 17 May 10I know this is completely off-topic and it’s perfectly okay if you don’t publish it, but you know, guys, than sometimes I wish to have a bigger staff just to having an excuse for using your software on it?
Philip Ashlock
on 17 May 10I don’t think they’re cursed because mostly what they’re doing is working with existing and emerging open standards and technology for distributed social networking (eg OpenID, oAuth, Activity Strea.ms, Webfinger, Salmon, PuSH, PoCo, oStatus, etc, etc) in a way that is synergistic with what MySpace, Google, and to some extent Facebook have already been doing. The difference is that they’re trying to turn these technologies into more of a solid product and service that can be understood as an independent entity (eg Wordpress or Firefox) compared Twitter/Google/MySpace/Facebook. If they do things right they’ll focus more on polishing a product and user experience around these existing technologies rather than trying to re-engineer these ideas. I think this is much like what oStatus and OpenID Connect are about. A lot of the thinking about the technology for distributed social networks has been sorted out, but we’re still lacking a refined and consistent user experience or a simple UI and branding convention that makes sense to people. It turns out that a lot of people have already been working on these systems and the Diaspora developers are well aware of this.
It’s true that the amount of money they have might complicate these efforts, but I think there are a lot of needs for this money beyond just product development – eg branding, marketing, bootstrapping a community, and the other related resources needed to make a real product that most previous “open” efforts have lacked.
For a list of some of the existing projects around distributed social networks, see: http://wiki.umuse.org/Initial_Notes#For_Consideration:
SudarshanP
on 17 May 10Getting that money would have freaked me out :)) making it impossible to do anything very productive under the glare of such media attention. If I were them here is what I would do:
1. Get organised.
2. Code for 3 months and then stop for some time and keep 10,000$ for the effort.
3. Start an Americal Idol/The Apprentice like program to create actual code in phases.
4. Setup a Jury with 3 luminaries like Bruce Schneier as judges.
5. Opensource projects can participate for bounties to create various pieces of the jig saw puzzle. The entire contest would not involve any actual travel. Just a mob of coders checking into GitHub and Google code and so on. Their own code also gets to participate in the contest ;-).
6. Try get guys like Larry Page involved… LOT of people apart from the poor geek on the street want to see FB dead ;-).
Note: These guys are celebrities now. They can easily become notorious. They are young. The best thing for them to do to themselves is to not get a bad name by blowing away the dough. If they keep the money away/use it as a catalyst for the FB killer, they will earn goodwill worth millions.
They can “encash that goodwill” over time. With their skills+goodwill they can at a future date start a real startup through a program like YC maybe even in an entirely different domain, and earn fortunes. Their greatest asset right now is that a LOT people will now listen to them for a short time. If they manage to pull it off, even more people who matter will LISTEN to them. That would translate to a lot more than the millions they may raise right now.
Wishing them luck. Hope they will be billionares some day. but not from donations, but from a real startup they create in either social networking or another area that really brings value to its customers.
Sudarshan.P
Nithin Bekal
on 17 May 10I’m surprised they are able to generate that kind of money for a project that will probably have support only among the geeky types. That’s a tiny percentage of facebook users. That small group switching to diaspora is unlikely to convince the rest who aren’t really bothered about facebook’s policies.
I’m really confused about whether I should be happy about someone trying to displace facebook, or should I be worried about the prospect of receiving repeated invitations to yet another social network.
erik
on 17 May 10Well said Jason (et all).
I guess it’s a catch-22 of trying to start a base movement with a bit of buzz, yet not so much buzz to flare-up and burnout too quickly.
I think @Liz had an excellent point – regardless of the tech or “media love”, does Diasporas solve a big enough “pain point” of Facebook?
My first challenge is learning how to pronounce it. embarassed
Zoso
on 17 May 10Haven’t they successfully accomplished the tasks of financing and marketing even before having any actual product. They now have fewer headaches and only need to concentrate on the product!
Alexander Ainslie (@AAinslie)
on 17 May 10They could adopt a different model: Collaboration.
Team up with the http://onesocialweb.org/ team who are further ahead with the same shared goal to create an interoperable, federated platform:
“The purpose of onesocialweb is to enable free, open, and decentralized social applications on the web. Its protocol can be used to turn any XMPP server into a full fledged social network, participating in the onesocialweb federation. The suite of extensions covers all the usual social networking use cases such as user profiles, relationships, activity streams and third party applications. In addition, it provides support for fine grained access control, realtime notification and collaboration.”
and also create a close working relationship with the www.Identi.ca team
and “federate” no-bullshit luminaries such as @davewiner to help them think things through.
For UI, they should look at: iA’s 2006 Facebook Designs, Redesigned http://bit.ly/aXwReB and try to get http://informationarchitects.jp to contribute (ping: Takeshi Tanaka [email protected] ) They can also help atomize and distribute the project in Asia & Europe
Just sayin!
www.twitter.com/aainslie
nob lin
on 17 May 10Hi Jason,
Cudos to you for “Rework” and other cool stuff…..
But this post really SUCKS!!!......I am surprised this is coming from an entrepreneur (who defies all odds to bring ideas to fruition).
This is a clear case of ” a thousand reasons why your idea will not work… 1. you don’t have enough money… 2. you don’t have enough money… Forget about it and get a summer internship!
This should really be a lesson to all entrepreneurs…..assuming these guys pitched a VC with their idea, they would have heard 10001 reasons why it will not work and even Myspace is collapsing and all that kind of BS.
The human mind is very cunning…..after these guys have crossed one of the most difficult hurdles in start up land..you still have the guts to make such outrageous suggestions on your blog…knowing a lot of up and coming entrepreneurs come to this site for inspiration…....Jason!! this is really appalling.
Isn’t this the proverbial “find a solution to a problem”. that every mentor talks about day in day out at every conference, on every blog and even you Jason.
To the guys at @diaspora, I say…It is possible!....and you can do it….Don’t allow such negative stuff to affect you, even if it is coming from heavyweights like Jason….just do your best and the world will help you…..$173,540 (and counting) is enough proof!!
Opinions are like “armpits”....everybody has more than one…and sometimes it sucks like this post…..!!!
PS: I am getting the sense Jason is just playing devils advocate…cos all the blogosphere is abuzz with the “other side of the story”.....but you of all people should know better!!
brombrom
on 17 May 10Facebook is a central hub. Basecamp is a central hub. Diaspora targets both. A simple plug-in can use the Diaspora “nodes” to replace centerlized Bascamp.
It’s the Campfire story all over again. But this time it will not work. Your smart campaign against Google forced us to pay for Campfire, but these are four nice guys that the “evil” PR would not stick too.
Steven Kovar
on 17 May 10I think maybe they should spend a large portion of that money securing a premium domain and to change their name from Disaspora—then maybe I will consider even joining their site.
Nathan Nash
on 17 May 10@Alexander
Regarding the UI they should have metalab design it. With all of that cash laying around they shouldn’t have a problem dropping a few grand. Interesting ideas otherwise.
David O.
on 17 May 10Although the title “diasporas curse” is sensational, I agree with a lot of your points, Jason. However Chuck also makes some interesting counterpoints, It would be better if those were the same sentiments of the guys building Diasporas.
The problem with social networks in general is that most people don’t want to deal with the fact that it’s a utility. Attempting to make huge profits from a utility using display advertising is a lesson in futility. So myspace and facebook are trying to use data mining to generate more revenue.
inzercia
on 17 May 10How do you know there is NO PRODUCT Jason?
jack
on 17 May 10As long as you take the time to lock down your Facebook account the info it gives out is not too “bad”.
Still they don’t allow you to lock everything down and the default privacy settings are horrendous, so pressing on a “like” button will generally give out all sorts of info.
Check out http://www.rabidgremlin.com/fbprivacy/ to get a breakdown of the info you are leaking from your Facebook account.
Mark Pesce
on 17 May 10Jesus fscking Christ. What these kids need is a little support, not some idiot tearing them down because they suddenly find themselves in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right idea. Jealous much?
If you want to see Diaspora* succeed, then you’d better work very, very hard coming up with solutions to every one of the very real problems you just raised. Otherwise, you’re just a hater, and you’re only making the problem worse.
Umang Goyal
on 17 May 10Sure they have created enough buzz for raising the money. All eyes are on them and the temperature is rising. And with the little information on what they are building, people will come up with their own stories.
The last thing they should do (or shouldn’t do at all) is loose FOCUS. Talk to the right people, get a good lawyer (you need one with all that money and legal possibilities) and get to work.
vasilis konstantinidis
on 17 May 10I don’t consider this amount of donation a stupidity, you already enumerated most of all the “wrong” things surrounding this “event”.
They are all teens, i recommend them keep 10-15K (the amount they needed in the first place) and from the rest buy each of themselves a BMW and go experience life for real.
This is means girls, parties, traveling, etc …
Pablo
on 17 May 10Your “don’t get funds” ideal is blinding you badly.
This is not an startup but a bunch of kids trying to do something cool.
They are not entrepreneurs and they are not in this for the money so it doesn’t really matter if they have $0, $170k or $17M.
Being driven by passion and not by money is what will make Diaspora succeed.
Paresh Mathur
on 17 May 10I have been raising these questions right from when they had there first $50k. It is indeed a problem to have too much of anything when you have too much of nothing.
pht
on 17 May 10@inzercia : probably because he went to the website (http://joindiaspora.com/ ) and couldn’t use / download / see sketches of anything.
Maybe the couple of videos of a few guys talking to the camera or their teachers contains the secret idea to a great product, but as far as I am concerned, no, there is no product yet. (But hopefully there will be, so that we can finally understand what the heck it is all about ;) )
Miguel Marcos
on 17 May 10It’s pretty early in the game to even surmise the end result.
Mike Rundle
on 17 May 10Totally agree here. People who are psyched for Diaspora to succeed are going to be sorely disappointed (and will instantly move on to the next up-and-comer).
It’s already a slim chance that any company will succeed but now they have the spotlight on them. If they make any missteps those errors will be magnified; they don’t have the luxury to fail in obscurity like most other startups. Shitty UI? People are going to complain. Any privacy features that aren’t 100% perfect, transparent, and superior to Facebook? People are going to complain. Servers that aren’t fast as hell? People are going to complain. There is no way they can meet anyone’s lowest expectations. Not going to happen.
Has anyone actually thought about their business for just one second? They’re building a new, completely free social network in 2010 catering to a fraction of a fraction of a niche of people. I don’t care if you have $100k, a smart team and a few thousand fans, that’s all completely useless when you choose to build a company like this. They’re not going to have any revenues coming in because they have no paying customers, no product to sell. It’s a free social network! They have to have a ridiculous amount of traffic to make even a little bit of money and they won’t have any kind of real traffic for a long, long time. A TechCrunch bump just won’t do it.
Starting a free social network in 2010? You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.
Jarin Udom
on 17 May 10I agree that they’ve got some crazy expectations right now, but I don’t agree with you shooting them down at this pre-code stage. Hopefully you meant this post (and they will take it) as a challenge not to drop the ball. They’ve got the eyes of the Internet on them now, and they really need to step up to the plate and just code nonstop for the entire summer. Like earlier commenters have said, they should also take a few thousand of that and get some really good UI work done.
“Distributed Facebook” sounds like a total dreamer idea right now, but I think they’ll be able to take the money they raise (maybe up to $500k by the time the Kickstarter drive expires), and provide a free hosted service and Heroku-compatible open source code. I know that as a Rails developer, I’m more than interested in contributing to the project, but only if the initial public release is not absolute crap. I am really surprised that you guys are not encouraging them instead of trying to shoot down their out there (but achievable) idea.
Adi
on 17 May 10I think that the article is too harsh. Watch carefully their video. They look like college students who don’t have a clue about what they are talking about.
With $10000 or $1 000 000 I give them zero chances. By themselves will not make it. They will make it only if they have the support of others who want Facebook to fail.
Iwani Khalid
on 17 May 10“Ideas are cheap and plentiful. What matters is execution & how well you execute”
Lets see how well they execute, it’s too early to judge them. To me,
1) You can never have too much money 2) The early exposure is good coz they get to meet all sorts of people 3) High expectations will either break them or make them. Hoping its the latter
Peter
on 17 May 10don’t be sp negative. lets see what they come up with.
articles like yours are like self-fulling prophecies. so when they fail those people like you can say: look, i told you they will loose.
you could have also watch it and then come up with this post.
Pies
on 17 May 10The world is apparently full of stupid people with too much money. I guess I should have gone into the spam business.
Igal
on 17 May 10guys. give them a chance. i agree with what you say. it’s a lot of money, and they are unexperienced, and there’s a chance they won’t know what do do with it. but there’s also a chance
but let’s say the truth, we all need an alternative for Facebook. i’m a web developer for 7 years now, and i wish i had the time to do what this four guys what to accomplish. if the developer community will help them (even with just good advice), it can be done.
Ross Hill
on 17 May 10I was tapping out a comment that turned into a blog post. Essentially, it feels like Diaspora’s curse is Kickstarter’s blessing. Full comment at http://su.pr/1oGK09.
Lukas Pitschl
on 17 May 10In my opinion the idea of a decentralized social network is by itself a single point of failure, since it requires a specific component to be installed on a user’s computer prior to being able to use it. I’m pretty sure all social networks out there gain from the very fact, you only need a browser which is installed on every computer already.
Also, already there blog doesn’t really even begin to sell their idea.
Anyways, good luck to the guys.
drew3000
on 17 May 10I agree with Liz McLellan, it sounds like an interesting project and could have solid application amongst niche groups looking for a decentralised network.
Instead of being an alternative to Facebook, it has much better potential at being something else that Facebook isn’t.
I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the source to see if there’s anything I can do with it, but I think the sell is way to tech for average social network users, who just want a place to update thier friends and trade some photos. Still, the shotgun effect didn’t really cost them anything and got people interested in establishing one of their “seeds” to take notice.
Sylmobile
on 17 May 10How the hell those blokes escaped the basement is beyond me. Someone catch these vermin and stow them below again. One bowl of gruel a day is sufficient until their first beta is released.
Brian
on 17 May 10I think the money is only a secondary issue to the fact that the Diaspora guys now have hundreds of “experts” coming out of the woodwork telling them what their product should be and what standards and platforms it should work with.
As I see it, they’ve lost the freedom to captain their own ship, and at this early point in the game that’s way worse than having an EXTRA $170k laying around if you need it. What I feel worst about is the chance that whatever idea they had, and however good or bad it may have been, they won’t have the courage (or ability, now) to say no and keep their vision from getting steamrolled.
Time will tell of course, and I’ll certainly be tracking their progress (quietly, so they can concentrate.)
jhuni
on 17 May 10Richard Stallman announced the GNU project and the free software movement in 1983 and I like to think it has been pretty successful in competing with proprietary malware such as Windows.
The fact that GNU was “pre-announced” didn’t hurt it much, actually, it is only because it was pre-announced and publicized that it came to mean anything. If it was just Stallman developing GNU in some underground basement, then the project would’ve been meaningless.
Similarly, nobody would care about Diaspora if it wasn’t for its publicity. And now due to its popularity many more people will be able to contribute to it because it is licensed under the GNU AGPL.
Chris
on 17 May 10As unfortunate as it is (because it is a good idea), I think you’re right. This is looking like it will suck. Money doesn’t automatically translate into all of things this product must become to live up to the claims. It may actually hurt.
This is important to remember for me (or anyone trying to make something new) when we’re tempted to complain about not having enough money, time, people, buzz – those things don’t build the product – we do.
nick d.
on 17 May 10wow guys, for all the naysaying, you might as well send back the negative vibes and undo the tech boom with one fell swoop.
Jason Trost
on 17 May 10While some of the points you bring up are valid, what’s the point of writing this? Advise other startups from seeking too much funding and gaining exposure too early? Try to get Diaspora to dial things down? File “raising too much money” and “too much exposure” under nice problems to have. I agree that they may be disadvantaged in some way by their early coverage, but I don’t think your post improves their situation or helps other startups.
Jason Palmer
on 17 May 10Now, this has the potential to be successful if someone talented (i.e. YOU GUYS) lend a hand. Imagine how nice a 37-signals Facebook would be? Even better if it’s open-source. Just a thought.. :)
Tom G
on 17 May 10I think the real point about the $170k is that it sends a very clear message to FaceBook. They need to address the concerns of their users or state the fact that they cannot make all the people happy all the time.
I don’t know the Diaspora guys, and maybe they are really good, but that said… Do they really think they can whip up a Facebook Killer in a month or two? I think that there is a little underestimation and lack of respect for the programming profession if people feel that a handfull of college students can whip up something like this and that money is the missing ingredient.
If they can pull it off, they have been handed a golden opportunity when it comes to free promotion. I wish my products got this kind of attention.
J
on 17 May 10I think the real point about the $170k is that it sends a very clear message to FaceBook. They need to address the concerns of their users or state the fact that they cannot make all the people happy all the time.
...and wouldn’t the easiest thing in this whole thing be for Facebook to simply change their policies? That kills Diaspora right there.
Denny Deaton
on 17 May 10“Now that we have much more money than we asked for, our situation has changed a little.”
That statement alone scares me.
j_king
on 17 May 10100% agreed.
I was floored that they had raised any money at all without a prototype.
They haven’t even tested their hypotheses. What if they fall short of their own expectations, let alone those of others? What will happen to all that money they raised if they don’t deliver?
I wish them the best of luck, but I do not envy them. Hard road ahead.
Jake McGraw
on 17 May 10Anyone remember the formative years of twitter? Geek only appeal, major technical issues, lacking significant features. I remember twitter being down for most of ‘07, ‘08.
Don Schenck
on 17 May 10I’m going to Wait And See on this one.
JF
on 17 May 10Anyone remember the formative years of twitter? Geek only appeal, major technical issues, lacking significant features. I remember twitter being down for most of ‘07, ‘08.
Remember how no one was really paying attention yet? Twitter had the benefit of relative obscurity during its early days. They were experimenting on their own schedule, getting things right and wrong without the world following along. Diaspora doesn’t have that luxury now.
Butler Bargain
on 17 May 10A striking post Jason, absolutely striking. I concur with most of your argument. However, I am an avid fan of the underdog and believe that you can “never say never.” I wish these boys the best, and hope they accomplish their goal.
All the best,
—BB
Sol Irvine
on 17 May 10This is also my concern about Diaspora: by falling into the vaporware pattern, they actually risk making the case FOR Facebook. When Diaspora almost inevitably disappoints (after all, a social network is only as good as the scope and depth of participation), the resigned notion that Facebook is the “only option” will take deeper root.
Since Diaspora has appointed itself the keeper of the backlash, it’s almost certain to flame out. Not to mention that there were alternatives to Facebook before Facebook became popular…
JF
on 17 May 10I am an avid fan of the underdog… I wish these boys the best, and hope they accomplish their goal.
Me too. I just think the situation they find themselves in is a curse. At this stage, what seems like an asset is really a liability.
FredS
on 17 May 10I wish more people were on Virb.
Huge
on 17 May 10170 000$ isn’t too much money, they are 4 guys and need to eat.
The early spotlight is usually not good (who wants to reveal their flaws from the get-go?), but in this case it could actually be OK, because of the size of the ongoing backlash against Facebook.
Expectation though, I have to agree, could kill the project. Not expectations that the product will be successful, which it probably will to a certain degree, but expectations that Diaspora will actually be different than FB.
However, I wish them all the best and agree that they must be given a chance and that their project is bang-on, perfect timing. The true face of FB is being revealed and it isn’t pretty. People need to regain ownership and control of their data and generated content. And maybe a small and unsuccessful challenger like Disaspora could force the 500 pound gorilla that FB is to make some concessions and changes for the better.
Jaret Manuel
on 17 May 10Fried Guy,
As much as I have distaste for Facebook (see my letter to Darth Zuckerberg http://jaretmanuel.com/im-prosumer-bitch-leave-zuckerbergs-bunkbook-for-good) and a desire to see something like Diaspora emerge, and succeed, I think you are bang on.
These kids seem brilliant, but it is all very much a ton of smoke & mirrors, and although they may have not seemed to ask for all this ‘Perfect storm’ attention from the press, they got it. All the hottest girls are lined up outside their locker room, and they’re all supposedly star quarterbacks. Can they seal the deal, get the touch down, and score with the ladies? Time will tell.
Regardless whether they liked it or not, they are being viewed as the anti-facebook which means it is war on Darth Zucker & FaceBunk friends. With war, one should take lessons for Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and to date the Diaspora army has violated many of them (with no regard for whether they asked for this or not).
Time will tell if they can move in a lean manner with this extensive funding. They asked for $10,000 so they should act as if they only have $9,000, and agree to not touch the other funds, and do something good with it. This is a mere idea, but I am in complete agreement with Jason that having constraints is a great thing.
I hope it works out but all this attention is ill timed for many reasons.
@JaretManuel
GeeIWonder
on 17 May 10With war, one should take lessons for Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and to date the Diaspora army has violated many of them (with no regard for whether they asked for this or not).
They are formless. They have high ground. Their cause is just, and about 5000 people see it as just enough to pony up some dough. They can use Facebook’s platform and for now Facebook can’t use theirs. They can commit to one front, Facebook cannot.
The usual VC rant doesn’t apply as well here as it isn’t just about money. It’s about votes. Diaspora just won their primary. They’ve already built their community to some extent. For a community platform, this is surely a significant difference.
You could launch, bugfix, establish a community, bugfix, add features, bugfix, grow, bugfix. And when you’re done you could have something great or you might find all your assumptions on how things were going to be used and received are now a liability.
And (additional) money is one of those things, like time, like space, that are only a liability if you let them become so. Buzz management will be a factor here, and one way to accelerate as needed is money. Without time, money or buzz you don’t have that problem, sure. But then you still need to secure all 3.
It’s different. Maybe better, maybe worse, probably about the same in that it depends on how you leverage it. And what your endgame is, which is not even really evident here.
Denny Deaton
on 17 May 10I’ve given this more thought this morning, and there is something really encouraging about the story. The fact that people are willing to give money to four guys who only have an idea at this point is evidence that people are willing to plunk down their money for something they’ve been using for free for many years now. Currently the donations are averaging around $36 per person. I don’t know exactly how that translates to a long-term subscription payment model but it does confirm that people are beginning to see enough value in services that they’ve been using for free to actually pay for them. I’m happy to see such a paradigm shift with something as large and popular as Facebook.
G.Irish
on 17 May 10I don’t think the problem is that they have too much money or too much exposure. The problem is that they don’t have a business model. How exactly do they plan to make money off a free social network? Making a big free social network and figuring out how to make money later is exactly why Facebook is selling out its users now (that and the fact that Zuckerberg is an ass). How is Diaspora going to avoid selling out its users like Facebook AND make money? That is the million dollar question
Start
on 17 May 10“(that and the fact that Zuckerberg is an ass)”
I could not agree more. It is really interesting how Fast Company and other magazines fawn over this kid who really has no clue about business. I bet he does not even know how to read a balance sheet.
Keith Rowley
on 17 May 10One point that was barely touched on: they have no way to viably monitize this even if they do build a great product. I personally wish google would build a true social network (not just whatever buzz is) as they could truly build something brilliant and profitable.
One point from the comments I agree with: this money is more about sending a message to fb “stop being evil” than it is about diaspora making a go of things.
On the money side, you had the luxury of having enough money in the bank (or at least in income) to concentrate on building base camp and ruby on rails. Having enough money to build something and concentrate only on that can a good thing.
Shane Reustle
on 17 May 10I think you make a very good point here Jason. Everyone is watching them, and they already have their money. If they do it right, they can probably pull it off, but I think this makes it a much more stressful situation. The project being fully open source helps I think. If they go off in the wrong direction, it can always be forked and fixed!
Ryan
on 17 May 10Diaspora may never compete with directly with Facebook. 20-30 social sites will pop up targeted at various groups & subcultures and you will be able to move freely between them or use all of them at once. Existing sites like Last.fm, and Linkedin will likely move their stuff to Diaspora as well as they are already serving specific needs. Diaspora will likely never make millions. The sites built off of it might.
What’s worrying to me the this everything-is-black-and-white group here thinks they are competing with Facebook. They need to start spending that money on a Google style video explaining what their goals are. I would hope they have a Facebook page too :)
For the geek-island crowd: If the geeks go there first so might everyone else. Examples are endless.
Facebook is anti-competition, anti-privacy, and attempts to make criminals out of competitors. They also just make crappy software and lack the technical skills required to make it remotely secure. Given what’s at stake I’m surprised at this hit-piece of a blog post. You could have been more supportive with some constructive suggestions for the group rather than dooming them.
Jonas
on 17 May 10That’s ‘k’, not ‘K’.
Keith Rowley
on 17 May 10One more thought: the thing a centralized network like fb does that I personally would want to keep is not so much have everyone on it as controll who and what is on it. This post already had a spam comment on it when I read through it, how do you keep the spam, porn, virusware etc off of a distributed social network when no one is in charge? You can’t and while some people would rather have a totally uncensored web i would rather be able to protect my children and myself from certain types of content.
Guy at HockeyBias dot com
on 17 May 10Their inexperience is of no help either…
David F. Cox
on 17 May 10Dominant market leaders stay that way by learning and copying from rivals. Even if what they copy fails its just a loss, whereas it is death to the competitor. If it succeeds the big company can afford to do it bigger and better. The real Facebook killer, apart from recent Facebook policies, will probably be a branch on the Twitter tree.
Dan G
on 17 May 10I like the idea of Diaspora and I wish the team well. Truly.
A key point that I’ve not seen otherwise discussed, however, is their inspiration—a professor of GPLv3. If they license under this regime, they may find themselves in a dense thicket of copyright and patent law. Copyright problems will limit corporate adoption; patent issues may limit the formats they can upload. (Read up on MPEG LA and/or Dolby licensing… just to scratch the surface!) Imagine a Facebook without Fan Pages that does not allow you to upload MP4… that is, a Facebook eviscerated of the functions the mass market uses. Not a good business case.
The clear analogy here is thus Napster. Distributed. Cool. Written by a kid in his basement. Free, because content wants to be free. Until a combination of competition and copyright lawsuits brings it to its knees. $170K is not nearly enough to pay for all the lawyers Diaspora will need.
Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps they will find appropriate licensing and not run into this problem. I find that unlikely given 4 kids who “just want to code” and a copyleft ideologue advisor… but you may choose to believe if you wish.
Ben P
on 17 May 10Jason great post, but I think it’s completely unnecessary. These kids are already quoting you in their interviews.
A few questions in they quote “Getting Real” http://bit.ly/aF2Fpl
So I don’t think you need to worry. They’ve internalized all of these lessons already. Your influence on software development has reached the tipping point. congrats.
Eric Marden
on 17 May 10What’s sad is that diaspora is not even that unique of an idea as there are at least two other groups out there working on the same idea that have code you can download and play with TODAY. They of course have none of the press and even less of the money and could probably really use (and make use of) an influx of users and energy from the anti-facebook crowd that is now supporting this vapor-ware.
JF
on 17 May 10My concern isn’t with them specifically – I’m sure they’re great guys, real smart, and have great intentions. And it’s great to hear that they’ve been influenced in Getting Real. I like it when small teams get together with a common vision and take on an incumbent. I wish them success.
My issue is with the environment build up around them now. The money, the publicity, the expectations. That’s their curse. It’s not them, it’s the environment.
Ben P
on 17 May 10We can’t control our environment we can only respond to it. Their environment isn’t ideal, but no environment is perfect. You’ve given them the tools to respond appropriately which is a solid advantage.
Is there anything else they might do to use some judo to amp up the positive elements of the environment that they are in?
Darcy Fitzpatrick
on 17 May 10Assuming Diaspora gets made but doesn’t live up to the hype, ie, the world according to Facebook doesn’t all flock to it en mass, they still stand a chance.
Their chance lies in attracting the geek set. Those of us who pay attention to the headlines AND the stories attached to those headlines about how FB is F’ing with us, and who want an alternative that is more in line with our core values.
If Diaspora can offer that, and the geeks all join up, it will only be a matter of time before the rest of the world follows.
The truth is, online, we’re the “it crowd” (yes, going with the tv series pun there). We’re the ones who create the most amount of chatter and buzz online. If we all leave FB, it won’t be long before FB doesn’t seem all that cool anymore. And if we all join Diaspora, it will only be a matter of time before that looks like the best place to be.
J
on 17 May 10We can’t control our environment we can only respond to it.
Not true, especially not true in this case. They created this environment. They granted the NYT interview, they’ve raised 17x more money than they said they needed, they continue to stay in the spotlight.
Adam Vana
on 17 May 10I think the name is a curse. I wonder how many average people know how to pronounce ‘diaspora’ or how many average people care about the etymological relationship of the name to the concept.
Are you supposed to say something like ‘Seed me on Diaspora!’ or ‘Spore me!’ or meet someone in a bar and say ‘Hey, check out my diaspora!’ That person will think you have an STD.
To make this truly revolutionary, the name should reach out to all people, regardless of educational background or level of nerdiness.
Adam Vana
on 17 May 10Also Diaspora*, I don’t care how much an asterisk looks like a dandelion seed-head, someone already did it, guys.
Sergio
on 17 May 10I’m not sure what gives people the impression that these guys are a startup, or a company of any kind. So far, it’s a ‘project’, and AGPL licensed (read: they’re giving it away). So, there’s not really a business model, because they’re not a business. They’re just trying to make something cool happen. Maybe $omething will lure them away, but hopefully they’re young enough to retain their idealism in this regard.
This puts them on pretty good ground from a tactical standpoint, because Facebook is philosophically/financially entrenched. From a privacy/portability/control standpoint, Facebook can’t offer anything even approaching what Diaspora* does, since FB’s continued existence is entirely dependent on pimping out users’ data to anyone willing to pay them for it. So the fact that they’re ‘fast moving’ really doesn’t do much for them in this case, aside from scrambling to block the upcoming client from importing FB user information. Maybe that will be enough, but I think if the Diaspora* team hook up with some good UI designers, Facebook’s gonna be in trouble.
Tomas
on 17 May 10I disagree.
It always comes down to the people that are trying to execute the project. If the donations go to their heads and they change their plan or if their plan was to get donations and then take their time then that’s a bad idea. However, if they planned to develop at a fast pace and don’t let the donations change their ways then this should be everything it had potential to be.
Sergio has this spot on, they are NOT a business. Don’t treat them as such as all your points really come down to “this isn’t the right way to start your business.”
Data
on 17 May 10I disagree, mostly because you are an early 2000’s evangelist and there hasn’t been anything ground breaking since Basecamp. Not dogging you for that success … well done.
However this is a new paradigm and you can’t predict the coaching and help they are going to get or the success they may or may not have.
But it’s always fun to see your fan page and the followers that love you.
Helmut Baker
on 17 May 10It’s funny how 37signals tend to shoot themselves in the foot with posts like this one. How so, you ask? Well, first they trumpet all over the media how the only way to go about accomplishing anything is by embracing severe constraints. Then, once they spot someone who is indeed embracing severe constraints (such as these guys who now have plentiful constraints in terms of having a spotlight on them etc.), 37signals declares that embracing the constraints is a sure fire way to lose big time.
So which will it be, dude—embracing the constraints or ‘laboring in obscurity, biding your time’?
Benjamin Running
on 17 May 10Dealing with the expectations will surely be tough, but implying that they are doomed because they have too much money and press is not my take on Diaspora.
IIRC, the original plan was 10k to fund four guys over three months. I realize they are students or recent grads and probably have very little in the way of expenses, but that’s around $833 per person, per month.
That won’t cover the rent on a crappy Bushwick loft share, never mind food, student loans, power bills, coffee to keep you up all night, etc.
They can pay for additional/better programmers, faster computers, stronger coffee, save some money (no one says they have to spend it all, anyway), whatever.
I assume these guys have a pretty good idea of what they want to make, and how long it’s going to take. I can’t imagine they just made up the timeline.
Some in the public are expecting a magical open-source “facebook” to appear in three months. What they produce will probably be considerably more rough, but as long as they get something that works out the door in a reasonably timely fashion, they’ll be a prime candidate for serious start-up capital, maybe a Betaworks-type incubator could take them on and get them some ‘gray hair’ guidance.
We’ll see…
joe
on 17 May 10they raised $170k for an idea -and you didn’t
Dominique De Vito
on 17 May 10I see 2 ways to challenge Facebook: - long-term: the rise of the set-top boxes, - short-term: coupling social features with popular applications, like… blogs !
I wrote a post about these 2 ways: Two ways to challenge the Facebook leadership
So, my hope for a much more broader audience for Diaspora is to couple the social features provided by Diaspora with popular blogs. I hope the Diaspora team has had this idea in mind. Because, then, Diaspora would take benefit from the installed base of the associated blog engines. It’s possible because, for example, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and DotClear, all popular blogging engines, are released under the GPL license, like Diaspora planned license.
Well, it might easier than expected to add social features to blog engines, while following “release early/often” rules. Let’s imagine it…
step_1: add a ‘friend’ panel to blogs (if not existing)
step_2: enable friends to post into one blog without use of (boring) captcha (or other kind of anti-spam procedure)
step_3: enable friends to post comments, with richer content, like image
step_4: provide a micro-blogging feature to popular blog engines (close to Twitter)
step_5: add (friend flow) aggregation feature to the micro-blogging feature, like Twitter
step_6: etc.
Following such a way, like the one my post has drawn, it’s possible to add, little by little, social features to blogs. And it will lead to a win-win position: - communities of blog engine developers could be interested to add more added-value features to their blog engine, - users would be interested to find here a Facebook alternative, inline with blog tools they already know.
So, according to that view, Diaspora may get support from communities of blog engine developers. IMHO, this is a good way to follow.
Another way to challenge Facebook could be to “distribute” development work accross engineering schools, as intern projects, to build more and more blocks for a decentralized Facebook…
Wayne
on 17 May 10IMO if the Diaspora team truly had a complete concept that could be delivered in three months, they be doing it and not making an appeal for an arbitrary amount of money.
Kurtosis
on 17 May 10I don’t think any of that really matters. Just because things like too much money too soon and/or early overexposure have been detrimental in past cases doesn’t mean they will be in this case.
What matters is whether their product ‘just works’ or not. That requires a few things: 1) Technically it has to solve the privacy problem without sacrificing the ease-of-use or utility provided by Facebook or other social networking sites. 2) Social networks are nothing without people, so it has to get users, traction, after release.
As for the money, that answer is easy. They originally needed $10k to last 4 guys for 3 months. Now they’ll have ~$200k to last 4 guys 60 months (plus or minus, depending on scaling hardware costs and whatnot). Put it into a trust, or better yet, a non-profit Diaspora Foundation. Bring an accounting/finance mathematics major friend on board (from Courant of course) to handle the money, publish 3rd party audits every month or two. Be transparent, and spend all your time and money coding and otherwise being frugal with it.
Cemre
on 17 May 10Metalab and open-source projects don’t sound like a good match after what they did with Mozilla :)
ldp
on 17 May 10Jealous at all? 170k split 4 ways is a modest salary for working at a startup. I’m sure they have things to spend it on. Though it also wouldn’t surprise me if they get more by the end. In my opinion the tone of this post is irresponsible. Given that the right minds are now discussing what they do and don’t need (unsure if you’re in that set, but interesting ensuing conversation), I’d say they have exactly what they need now. Plus 170K.
Anonymous Coward
on 18 May 10I don’t think 37signals is jealous of $170,000.
ldp
on 18 May 10Oh of course not of 170K. Perhaps jealous of hype?
scottg
on 18 May 10Jason I agree with your comments, but I think something constructive in the way of advice would be much better, e.g.
Now you’ve raised far more than you ever imagined, follow these principles to give yourself the best chance of developing something great….........
I’m sure you’ve got some great advice to give someone in that position, remember they only asked for $10 000 but were hit by the perfect storm.
Memo
on 18 May 10This FB vs Privacy war is just crazy now.
Axel
on 18 May 10C’mon Jason be a little more adventurous, give time some time and don’t throw the baby away with the water… They didn’t expect so much money, and I know this sort of money contadicts your view and common sense on growing a business organically, but it also proves the power of Kickstarter-type communities, they deserve a chance and some encouragement before judgement.
ninanord
on 18 May 10Very interesting type of crowdsourcing! And how cool is that – a student foursome challenging a giant. Might turn into s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g new and maybe great stuff, doesn´t it?
I like the fact that something like this happens, no matter what happens next…
Ronald van de Meent
on 18 May 10First of all I love Kickstarter, over the last few months I have seen lots of great projects being funded even in these poor financial times without people wanting anything back for it than a lousy t-shirt or a signed DvD. That for me is the true spirit of the internet.
Normally I find your posts, books and articles kick ass and I think that instead of writing this article you should hand out to these guys and offer you mentorship, you have been around I am sure you’d be good at it.
Sumeet Chawla
on 18 May 10So true… I totally agree with the spot light they are getting now is too much. They haven’t even started the project yet :|
Arnold Waldstein
on 18 May 10Yes and no…It’s not bad to be popular too young if you find the maturity to use it well.
Of course you are right that too much too soon without a product can be a problem.
But, they created something on the rebound of public outcry and it resonated with a lot of folks. A vehicle for support was created that we felt we were part of the change.
Let’s give this a chance…I’d rather take the glass half full poise and hold back and see where it goes.
Neil
on 18 May 10I definitely agree with the points you make. For a case study of the problems that too much money and too much early exposure bring, read Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenburg. The combination of great expectations and essentially unlimited resources basically killed Chandler before it even go off the ground.
Mark Essel
on 18 May 10Agree for all the right reasons.
I was jealous, then respected their timing, then concerned for their future all within a few minutes.
Wanna really bite into Facebook’s market? Gotta do it with the antithesis, a 100 lines of social coding goodness. Nostat.us
Plus keep the motivation on providing social connectivity between users by making them your number one customer. Don’t sell their attention and information, accept donations and sell virtual goods to keep the lights on.
Philly Cheese :-)
on 18 May 10Question: I thought it was illegal to encrypt anything that might leave U.S. soil. They are planning to add encryption if I am not mistaken which would make the act of my accessing their system illegal as I live in Canada.
I wish these guys the best of luck but I’m not sure they have quite thought this whole thing through in detail – please correct me if I am wrong.
Anonymous Coward
on 18 May 10fsdf
David Andersen
on 18 May 10Wow. I just watched their Kickstarter video. I can’t see how this could replace FB.
moB dicK
on 19 May 10Some very interesting comments folks!
For more on market strategy read this well researched article on Nintendo’s rise:
“As disruptive attackers follow their own sustaining trajectories, they make inroads into the low end of the market or begin pulling less demanding customers into a new context of use.” http://malstrom.50webs.com/shield.htm
”Paradigm is something that can be regarded as a dominant thought in a given time. When a paradigm shift takes place, what used to be regarded as a commonsense in one industry no longer works.” http://malstrom.50webs.com/sword.htm
It doesn’t have to be “as good” as FB… it has to redefine the arena of competition to win over users… to meet the needs of potential users on their own terms.
moB dicK
on 19 May 10Re: ”...and branding convention that makes sense to people.”
I love Malstrom’s comment:
“Give me your ears and I will give you your reasons.” malstrom
R Hassinger
on 20 May 10Diaspora has fail written all over it, I’m afraid.
Josh
on 20 May 10Unless it supports Farmville, Mafia Wars, and Cafe World, it’s not going to do anything to topple Facebook, and that’s a sad truth about the stranglehold of Zuck.
Anonymous Coward
on 21 May 10Diaspora could change the world. And that is why it will succeed.
Votre
on 21 May 10Why do I hear the faint echo of “Green Eyes” in this write-up.
Jason is positing as truths things he can’t possibly know or prove about the Diaspora development effort. Especially since it hasn’t actually gotten underway yet.
Perhaps Jason could enlighten us as to where all his figures, and facts, and truths about software development come from? Are they the result of lessons he himself has learned when he was ‘in the trenches ’ and directly involved in a team that was coding a major software project?
I ask, because to my ears, they mostly sound like regurgitated comments and assertions made by various industry pundits over the years.
goob
on 23 May 10diaper + spooge + diarrea = diaspora
This discussion is closed.