Just so you know, we recommend the use of a server with root access, or the use of Heroku to deploy the app easily. Obviously, having your own server gives you more control over how you're running D* and which processes you can run alongside it, but that comes with an extra set of problems that people without sysadmin experience tend to be scared of. You can try to use CPanel and shared hosting, but we haven't been able to get that shit running in the past (DreamHost, anyone?), so you're basically on your own with that. We're also not designing the app/network to run on shared hosting, so future versions may leave shared-hosted pods out in the dust...
I would really recommend using Heroku and the diaspora_provisioner to get a D* instance up and running on your Heroku account.