What do you think of google+?

[ndee]

I friend just sent me an invitation for google+. The concept of
circles reminds me of ascpects in diaspora. Although google+ is very
young I experience it as very stable. Do you think diaspora has a
chance against google+?

Cheers
ndee

[Nate]

Google+ is still hosted by a 3rd party, and cannot be self run.   Different audience all together.  The proper question would be, does Google+ stand a chance against facebook?

[Kurt Padilla]

More accurately, only one third party hosts Google+: Google. Diaspora users get to choose their hosts. So, the concept of Diaspora still holds relevance. It just needs a little more refinement.

On Jul 3, 2011 12:30 PM, "Nate" <yjn...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Alex Andrews]

At the risk of being a donny downer on this, I think that Google+
risks killing Diaspora, which is a real shame, as being the potential
Facebook alternative.

For a start, they have implemented the excellent "aspects" feature
very very cleanly and, from a UX perspective, beautifully in their
Circles feature. Insofar as one of Diaspora's selling points from the
perspective of the average user was this ability to share information
with only those who you want to, then Diaspora is strongly damaged by
this. This leaves Diaspora's other important selling point - its
decentralisation. The problem is, to the average user, this was always
going to be a hard sell - the average user wouldn't really understand
what the immediate advantage of this is, and the disadvantage of
centralised solutions like Google+.

The sell always had to be partially on the Diaspora feature set for
the end user. With this effectively borrowed by Circles, I find it
very difficult to sell Diaspora. Imagine a conversation with your
parents - how could you sell Diaspora to them now compared not to
Facebook, but to Google+. I'd struggle.

All the best,

Alex

[Kurt Padilla]

...Why would you try selling Diaspora to your 'rents?

http://xkcd.com/918/

On Jul 3, 2011 1:56 PM, "Alex Andrews" <awgan...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Ted Smith]

Selling Diaspora is going to be much easier once Facebook's iron grip on
social networking is fragmented in any way. Google Plus is one way that
can be accomplished, and it seems from history that Google is both more
willing to allow bulk export of personal data (in Google Plus, go to
Settings>Data Liberation) and federation.

[Chris McCormick]

On Sun, Jul 03, 2011 at 06:55:45PM +0100, Alex Andrews wrote:
> At the risk of being a donny downer on this, I think that Google+
> risks killing Diaspora, which is a real shame, as being the potential
> Facebook alternative.

As a precedent example, does anyone know of a Software Libre webmail alternative with a similar feature set and the usability of Gmail? I am yet to find one, and I think that is telling. Sure, I run Squirrelmail and I have tried Roundcube, but I think there is a reason why these products lack the impetus to compete with Gmail. Google is just not evil enough for people to be motivated to use and develop a competitive alternative.

Cheers,

Chris.

-------------------
http://mccormick.cx

[gellenburg]

I think he means selling the idea, not the software.

That all being said, I think Google+ is going to be a disruptor to Facebook & Twitter.

I've been using it heavily for the past few days and I'm loving it the more I use it.

Diaspora (joindiaspora) still hasn't opened up invites so for me, it's becoming pretty useless.

Already I can communicate with lots more of my friends, colleagues, and fellow geeks on G+ than I ever wish I could on Diaspora.

That's telling.

(Feel free to add me on G+ too while you're at it: https://plus.google.com/116185521564845116560/posts)

[Nate]

Horde was getting there last I used it.  There's a lot of reasons to hate horde though.

Zimbra has a sweet webmail interface, but its a whole suite, not just a webmail app with a standard back end like horde and squirrelmail.

[Nate]

Got any invites?  ;-)

[Malcom Chakery]

I host about 100-150 clients websites and email and I can tell you from experience that more and more clients are loving the flexibility that comes with the ability of us hosting their websites and the ability to have us set up Google Apps for their email. It allows them to have Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Chat all on  the same domain and Gmail gives them all of the space they need and it connects on all mobile devices with little knowledge of how to set up an email account. You simply plug in your username and password on Android Devices and iPhones and your in.

Malcom Chakery

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Malcom Chakery
Chakery Design | Chakery SEO
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[Malcom Chakery]

Regarding Google+ invites it is not as cut and dry as a simple invite process. The way it works currently is this way.

Anyone with a Google+ account can add someone without a Google+ account's gmail address along with their first and last name to what is called a circle. Similar to a list.

Next they have to share a message, or photo with that circle and check the box to notify people with a Google+ account via email.

By doing that Google will send a notification to that person and will eventually create an invite for that person.

This is my understanding of the process at this time.

You can also go to plus.google.com

the information is being pulled from your Google Profile so you must have a gmail account along with a Google Profile.

If you would like for me to try to add you please send your first and last name along with your gmail address to cha...@gmail.com and I will try to help set you up the best I can.

Malcom Chakery
www.chakery.com

[Maurus Blank]

> . Do you think diaspora has a
> chance against google+?

Do we think Linux has a "chance" against Windows? So what the hell are
u talking about? It`s a social and human concept to use alternative
and open technologies instead of using commercial shit to help rich
people getting more rich by selling your private data.

--
MfG,
Maurus Blank

mailto: maurus...@gmail.com
URL: www.rman2.de

[Jarin Udom]

I really like Google+. And Jesus, someone's email signature is out of control.

[rek2]

can someone sent me an invite to this email address? I'll like to try it out for the heck of it.

Thanks

2011/7/5 Jarin Udom <jarin...@gmail.com>

[John Favorite]

I too would love an invite :) 

[mike joyce]

Try and get an invite here

[Sarah Mei]

One of the advantages of Diaspora is that you can choose who you trust
your data with, instead of just trusting Facebook. G+ lets you trust
Google instead of Facebook, which, for a lot of people, is pretty
attractive -- and much more attractive than running their own Diaspora
server. c.f. http://xkcd.com/918/

We have a lot of work to do. Ultimately, though, Ted Smith is right.
Getting folks accustomed to social interaction outside of Facebook is
good for the whole ecosystem.

[Kurt Padilla]

...or game night.

[dwilliams]

Nope. Hell, Google+ is even the most discussed thing in months in
this Diaspora list! :)

[John Favorite]

This actually has me thinking of ways to use diaspora as a central hub for publishing into other services. I could put everything in and read it on my pod, then share/publish as we want...

[dwilliams]

On Jul 5, 9:28 pm, Sarah Mei <sarah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the advantages of Diaspora is that you can choose who you trust
> your data with, instead of just trusting Facebook. G+ lets you trust
> Google instead of Facebook, which, for a lot of people, is pretty
> attractive -- and much more attractive than running their own Diaspora

> server. c.f.http://xkcd.com/918/

>
> We have a lot of work to do. Ultimately, though, Ted Smith is right.
> Getting folks accustomed to social interaction outside of Facebook is
> good for the whole ecosystem.

With just about anything else, I'd agree, but with Google we're
talking about a company that has access to private data way beyond
anything Facebook could dream of, and a correspondingly greater
ability to infer things about individuals based on that data. Take
all the dangers Eben Moglen pinpointed in his talk that inspired
Diaspora, and they are the same (if not more pressing) with Google+.

On a much less pressing level, yes it's nice to have aspects/circles,
and the ability to export one's data (though I imagine it's copy-paste
and not cut-paste), but ultimately the real benefit of Diaspora was
supposed to be the users' control over their data, and cutting one
centralized data-mining capability into two is not moving toward a
solution for the end user of social networks.

[Che]

On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 1:55 PM, Alex Andrews <awgan...@gmail.com> wrote:

At the risk of being a donny downer on this, I think that Google+
risks killing Diaspora, which is a real shame, as being the potential
Facebook alternative.

For a start, they have implemented the excellent "aspects" feature
very very cleanly and, from a UX perspective, beautifully in their
Circles feature. Insofar as one of Diaspora's selling points from the
perspective of the average user was this ability to share information
with only those who you want to, then Diaspora is strongly damaged by
this. This leaves Diaspora's other important selling point - its
decentralisation. The problem is, to the average user, this was always
going to be a hard sell - the average user wouldn't really understand
what the immediate advantage of this is, and the disadvantage of
centralised solutions like Google+.

The sell always had to be partially on the Diaspora feature set for
the end user. With this effectively borrowed by Circles, I find it
very difficult to sell Diaspora. Imagine a conversation with your
parents - how could you sell Diaspora to them now compared not to
Facebook, but to Google+. I'd struggle.

All the best,

Alex

What many people are missing here is the overt political angle to 'selling' Diaspora. Same with any version of GNUnix. When it becomes REALLY important for masses of people to get away from Big Brother -- Diaspora will have its target audience delivered to it frankly, AFAIC. (But this also implies it will acquire a certain profile and usability for Diaspora by then, too, IMO.)

[jakewc2 gmail]

>
> What many people are missing here is the overt political angle to
> 'selling' Diaspora. Same with any version of GNUnix. When it becomes
> REALLY important for masses of people to get away from Big Brother --
> Diaspora will have its target audience delivered to it frankly, AFAIC.
> (But this also implies it will acquire a certain profile and usability
> for Diaspora by then, too, IMO.)

I dont post at all, because I find most of what is said way over my
head. Having tried to install Diaspora on my Ubuntu machine, and my
linux server, it just was too complicated. I do find it very
frustrating. I added my name to the list of people wanting to an invite
to diaspora not long after the site went up. I still havent had an
invite. Unless it becomes more usable, and unless it is soon, and it
goes into at least beta, so members of the public will be able to test
it without the huge installation procedures, people like myself wont
want to know. Its only because I hate facebook with a passion, I am
still following. I did try to install friendika, even that was
difficult, and I had to get somebody to install it for me. I dont like
it very much. But the people you really want to join, wont. Its too hard
to install.

I find that very sad, because I was hoping that it would be a the best
alternative.......

John

[Kurt Padilla]

Just sign up at one of the unofficial pods. I used to use diasp.eu.

[Harry Williams]

John, try my-seed.com

[Rick Waldron]

When Chrome reaches version 14, this site will no longer work properly: http://my-seed.com 

http://gyazo.com/4b64c49643b24a38929f5acff8c69640.png

See: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/06/trying-to-end-mixed-scripting.html

- Rick

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Harry Williams <harry.x....@gmail.com> wrote:

John, try my-seed.com

[Che]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Kurt Padilla <kurt.p...@gmail.com> wrote:

Just sign up at one of the unofficial pods. I used to use diasp.eu.

Many of you are missing this guy's point: IT'S TOO HARD and/or obscure for most people to get involved in any way with this project. You have to lower the bar for just getting in the door. If you don't want to believe this and prefer to argue the point, AFAIC join a long, long list of failed 'promising' projects... One of the great things about (some) GNUnix projects is that they understand what Microsoft has ALWAYS understood: if you don't make it drop-dead simple to install -- most people won't.

[Harry Williams]

Unfortunately with the widespread animosity toward Microsoft, the very positive things they've brought to computing are drowned under the sea of security and licencing issues...

I'm not a coder these days, but once I used to do 6502 assembly and scraped a living running HiByte Software... I baulked at the installation routine for Diaspora, leaving the suitable server space I have, going to waste.

:(

h

[Raphael Sofaer]

They're loading their flattr button over http.

[Rick Waldron]

Raphael,

If someone knows how to get in touch with them (I don't), they should give a heads up.

Rick

[Sarah Mei]

We are totally aware how difficult it is to install Diaspora right
now. I have felt it myself. It is on our radar to fix.

If you've tried to install and hit a wall, send me your info (OS,
version of ruby, & what the wall was, even if you can't remember
specifics) and that will help focus our efforts.

Sarah

--
------------------
Sarah Mei
sarahmei.com/blog

[Alex Andrews]

Hate to say this: but what about the Windows users?

All the best,

Alex

[Sarah Mei]

It's possible, but not easy. Although I guess it's about as easy as on
any other platform.

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Installing-on-Windows-XP

Someone in IRC said these instructions also work on Windows Server 2003.

:)

[Ritchie Wilson]

I just saw Google+ (I'm not signing up). Seems like they really took a lot of the good ideas from Diaspora and other distributed stuff. Just without the distributed stuff.

[jakewc2 gmail]

On 08/07/11 16:40, Harry Williams wrote:

John, try my-seed.com

Hi, I have an invite if you want to connect to me, its jak...@gmail.com

thank you though, I really appreciate it.

[jakewc2 gmail]

I cant remember, I know it stopped working in the middle of the install.
I use Ubuntu 10.10 on my laptop, and Linux, not sure what version, on my
server, and both had problems, mind you, the server was a bit more
complicated, as I can only use the terminal for that. and dont have a
gui, if I get confused. Sorry, I cant be of more help. I could try
again, when the beta comes out. See how that goes.

John

On 08/07/11 23:50, Sarah Mei wrote:
> We are totally aware how difficult it is to install Diaspora right
> now. I have felt it myself. It is on our radar to fix.
>
> If you've tried to install and hit a wall, send me your info (OS,

> version of ruby,& what the wall was, even if you can't remember

[dwilliams]

Hi John. I just sent an invite to jak...@gmail.com

[jakewc2 gmail]

Hi thank you, I have an invitation now, but if you want you could join
to my profile, dont know how to do that though,

John

[Michael Scheffler]

Hi there,

problem solved, thanks for banging me. I've just overlooked my wrong
implementation ;)

If anyone still has problems, can contact me direct by mail or add
du...@my-seed.com at your pod.

- Michael
my-seed.com Admin

[Natanael L]

That mostly sums up what I think. If we can get Google+ to agree on a
federated protocol that both Diaspora and GNU social use, then what's
the big issue? Then Google+ essentially just becomes another "host".
Many of you probably still dislike Google or have other reasons to
want to avoid them, but if you can talk to your friends on there from
your own server, you don't need to be an "outsider" while trying to
sell in the advantages of the additional freedom.

On Jul 3, 11:30 pm, Ted Smith <te...@riseup.net> wrote:
> Selling Diaspora is going to be much easier once Facebook's iron grip on
> social networking is fragmented in any way. Google Plus is one way that
> can be accomplished, and it seems from history that Google is both more
> willing to allow bulk export of personal data (in Google Plus, go to
> Settings>Data Liberation) and federation.

>
> On Sun, 2011-07-03 at 18:55 +0100, Alex Andrews wrote:
> > At the risk of being a donny downer on this, I think that Google+
> > risks killing Diaspora, which is a real shame, as being the potential
> > Facebook alternative.
>
> > For a start, they have implemented the excellent "aspects" feature
> > very very cleanly and, from a UX perspective, beautifully in their
> > Circles feature. Insofar as one of Diaspora's selling points from the
> > perspective of the average user was this ability to share information
> > with only those who you want to, then Diaspora is strongly damaged by
> > this. This leaves Diaspora's other important selling point - its
> > decentralisation. The problem is, to the average user, this was always
> > going to be a hard sell - the average user wouldn't really understand
> > what the immediate advantage of this is, and the disadvantage of
> > centralised solutions like Google+.
>
> > The sell always had to be partially on the Diaspora feature set for
> > the end user. With this effectively borrowed by Circles, I find it
> > very difficult to sell Diaspora. Imagine a conversation with your
> > parents - how could you sell Diaspora to them now compared not to
> > Facebook, but to Google+. I'd struggle.
>

> > All the best,
>
> > Alex
>
> > On 3 July 2011 18:48, Kurt Padilla <kurt.padi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > More accurately, only one third party hosts Google+: Google. Diaspora users
> > > get to choose their hosts. So, the concept of Diaspora still holds
> > > relevance. It just needs a little more refinement.
>
> > > On Jul 3, 2011 12:30 PM, "Nate" <yjn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>  signature.asc
> < 1KViewDownload

[Disconnect]

FYI diaspora's decentralization/federation means you don't need to wait for joindiaspora invites. There are a bunch of public pods out there that all interoperate with each other and with joindiaspora. (I run privit.us, diasp.org is the other 'big' one, and podupti.me - by diasporg - lists more..)

I put a quick diaspora/g+ comparison up at https://privit.us/p/223 and https://plus.google.com/104677440565340653041/posts/ThtwtPK6Zqm (ignore the ugly formatting on Diaspora right now, the view for public posts is a little wonky.. The logged-in view is much nicer looking :) ..)

As I see it, for general users/mom-and-pop, the biggest two draws to G+ over diaspora right now is that photo posting is much simpler, and (since its centralized) the "recommended connections" feature. (And the biggest two losses are no posting to external services such as fb/twitter, and when you add someone to a circle the "historic" posts in that circle are visible to them..)

On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 8:50 PM, gellenburg <gelle...@gmail.com> wrote:

I think he means selling the idea, not the software.

That all being said, I think Google+ is going to be a disruptor to Facebook & Twitter.

I've been using it heavily for the past few days and I'm loving it the more I use it.

Diaspora (joindiaspora) still hasn't opened up invites so for me, it's becoming pretty useless.

Already I can communicate with lots more of my friends, colleagues, and fellow geeks on G+ than I ever wish I could on Diaspora.

That's telling.

(Feel free to add me on G+ too while you're at it: https://plus.google.com/116185521564845116560/posts)

[Xandão !]

I'd like to be invited as well, thanks.

2011/7/5 John Favorite <john.f...@gmail.com>

I too would love an invite :) 

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 1:56 PM, rek2 <rek2gn...@gmail.com> wrote:

can someone sent me an invite to this email address? I'll like to try it out for the heck of it.

Thanks

2011/7/5 Jarin Udom <jarin...@gmail.com>

I really like Google+. And Jesus, someone's email signature is out of control.

[Matthew]

> Having tried to install Diaspora on my Ubuntu machine, and my
> linux server, it just was too complicated. I do find it very
> frustrating. I added my name to the list of people wanting to an invite
> to diaspora not long after the site went up. I still havent had an
> invite. Unless it becomes more usable, and unless it is soon, and it
> goes into at least beta, so members of the public will be able to test
> it without the huge installation procedures, people like myself wont
> want to know. Its only because I hate facebook with a passion, I am
> still following. I did try to install friendika, even that was
> difficult, and I had to get somebody to install it for me. I dont like
> it very much. But the people you really want to join, wont. Its too hard
> to install.
>
> I find that very sad, because I was hoping that it would be a the best
> alternative.......
>
> John

Oh my gosh.... YES YES and YESSSS!! I'm right there with ya buddy.
I've got plenty of experience of open source languages and even a fair
amount in Linux, yet actually getting Diaspora to work was a freaking
NIGHTMARE that took me no less than Eight hours to get figured out the
first time because of all the blasted dependency issues. I hate to say
it, but the developers are too caught up in their fun little latest-
and-greatest technologies and aren't thinking about the experience of
the end-users. They'd never survive in the business world with this
lack of attention to the user experience. I have a really bad taste
for Ruby now because of the enormous headache it's caused me through
this experience. I just can't get over the horrible experience and
dependency issues out to wazoo. Someone on the team, and this is
SERIOUS, NEEEEEEDS to get to work on an installation wizard which
takes care of all the dependency issues for you and installs
everything.

If even moderately experienced Linux users such as myself are having
such a nightmare setting this up, then Diaspora doesn't stand a chance
to compete in the market. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to get
their head checked.

All that being said, I'm still rooting for Diaspora. I think it's a
really awesome concept and I would seriously LOVE to have my own node
running on my machine, but it absolutely NEEDS to be more user
friendly to get up and running if it ever hopes to have a glimmer of
hope to compete. Get that taken care of and I'd be happy to provide
plenty of ideas for improvement. I'm a think tank waiting to burst :P
but it's just too unstable and user miserable to be worth my time
right now :(

Cheers :)

[Disconnect]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 12:25 AM, Matthew <feig...@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh my gosh.... YES YES and YESSSS!! I'm right there with ya buddy.
I've got plenty of experience of open source languages and even a fair
amount in Linux, yet actually getting Diaspora to work was a freaking
NIGHTMARE that took me no less than Eight hours to get figured out the
first time because of all the blasted dependency issues. I hate to say
it, but the developers are too caught up in their fun little latest-
and-greatest technologies and aren't thinking about the experience of
the end-users. They'd never survive in the business world with this
lack of attention to the user experience. I have a really bad taste
for Ruby now because of the enormous headache it's caused me through
this experience. I just can't get over the horrible experience and
dependency issues out to wazoo. Someone on the team, and this is
SERIOUS, NEEEEEEDS to get to work on an installation wizard which
takes care of all the dependency issues for you and installs
everything.

You mean like "gem install bundler; bundle install"? Its not point and click, but its not that hard..

If even moderately experienced Linux users such as myself are having
such a nightmare setting this up, then Diaspora doesn't stand a chance
to compete in the market. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to get
their head checked.

It might just be that you aren't the target market for running a server from alpha-level code on a dist that many of the devs aren't using..
 

All that being said, I'm still rooting for Diaspora. I think it's a
really awesome concept and I would seriously LOVE to have my own node
running on my machine, but it absolutely NEEDS to be more user
friendly to get up and running if it ever hopes to have a glimmer of
hope to compete. Get that taken care of and I'd be happy to provide
plenty of ideas for improvement. I'm a think tank waiting to burst :P
but it's just too unstable and user miserable to be worth my time
right now :(

You said 'user' a lot but I don't think that means what you think it means. A 'user' is someone sitting behind a web browser, -using- the network. For them, its reasonably easy and getting easier fairly steadily.. You don't think it is administrator-friendly, and thats fine.. (But it is not especially more annoying than any other rails app. Which says a lot more about RoR than diaspora, unfortunately..)

Diaspora isn't going to "win" because a few tens of thousands of linux users set up their own pods (with varying degrees of stability, etc.) That is, if anything, going to be harmful. If it "wins" (wins what, btw?) its a lot more likely to do so by getting a few big, stable installations running for the masses and convincing them to use it. (Why don't most fb/twitter/tumblr users run their own email servers? Because its hard, its finicky and its not necessary. Diaspora pods are no different - you --can-- run your own, but most users of the service won't..)

The "every cellphone runs a pod" idea is great, until the very first time you miss a bunch of updates because you lost signal. (Or changed ip addresses. Or discover that you can't give - conservatively - 80% of your ram over to it and still open anything else. Etc.)  Diaspora doesn't need to run on every toaster any more than email or webservers do..

[jakewc2 gmail]

I underdstand what you are talking about, but if you want to win over Facebook, it doesnt matter how much you want to make this different, people are used to facebook, and how easy it is. For a Huge pod to work, somebody is going to have to pay for the servers, and nowadays, who can afford that. To dismiss what this person has said, seems a bit remiss really, and not all that good a advert for something better than Facebook. To me, that shows a lack of understanding of the end user, not administrator. As a hater of Facebook, and and enduser, I find nit really frustrating, that something like this comes along, and is too difficult for me to install. I would love to be an administrator, especially for friends and those with similar interests, but as it stands I cant......and that is really not something I want to hear about Diaspora.....

Dont make it so that its too difficult, you wont get FB users flocking in droves, and that is sad......

John

[con...@mikejoyce.me]

Agree 100% John, I took one look at the instructions to set up my own pod and thought it was unbelievably complicated for an end user. I requested an invite to diaspora more than 6 (?) months ago and I have still heard nothing. Now that google + is here, I've heard a lot of people saying that they don't want to switch because all their friends are on facebook. If that's the case, diaspora really is going to struggle as a new social network platform.

Sent via BlackBerry® from AIS

---

From: jakewc2 gmail <jak...@gmail.com>

Sender: diaspora...@googlegroups.com

Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:38:24 +0100

To: <diaspora...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: diaspora...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: What do you think of google+?

[Kurt Padilla]

You need neither an invitation nor the ability to set up a pod to use Diaspora.

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Community-supported-pods

[con...@mikejoyce.me]

So what is the point in offering invitations?

Sent via BlackBerry® from AIS

---

From: Kurt Padilla <kurt.p...@gmail.com>

Sender: diaspora...@googlegroups.com

Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:13:39 -0400

[Disconnect]

On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Kurt Padilla <kurt.p...@gmail.com> wrote:

You need neither an invitation nor the ability to set up a pod to use Diaspora.

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Community-supported-pods

Sure would be nice if that was, I dunno, on the JD front page. Or an email to the list of people who signed up for invites..
 

On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 1:08 PM, <con...@mikejoyce.me> wrote:

Agree 100% John, I took one look at the instructions to set up my own pod and thought it was unbelievably complicated for an end user. I requested an invite to diaspora more than 6 (?) months ago and I have still heard nothing. Now that google + is here, I've heard a lot of people saying that they don't want to switch because all their friends are on facebook. If that's the case, diaspora really is going to struggle as a new social network platform.

This keeps coming up in this thread, and I don't think anyone has actually answered the most basic question: Why would an end user want to set it up? Do most end users run their own webservers? Or mailservers? (If so, then whats with all that @gmail.com and blogspot.com and such I keep seeing..?)

It isn't just about computing capacity - running a production service (whether its diaspora, or web, or even something like a fb game server) requires a lot more time, effort and skill than most end users can devote. Diaspora isn't some magic wand that makes all that go away. It is a service just like any other (broadly) and requires just as much work as anything else. (More, since its a moving dev target with frequent instabilities in a language that seems designed to throw away 25 years of institutional knowledge in server management.. but I digress...)

[Kurt Padilla]

Some pods just operate that way. Perhaps the the administrators of such pods don't have the capacity for open registration.

[con...@mikejoyce.me]

I registered my email at joindiaspora.com to sign up over 6 months ago. What has that got to do with community pods?

Sent via BlackBerry® from AIS

---

From: Kurt Padilla <kurt.p...@gmail.com>

Sender: diaspora...@googlegroups.com

Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:34:16 -0400

[Kurt Padilla]

About as much as an invitation to the joindiaspora.com pod has to do with using Diaspora. If you just want to use Diaspora without waiting for an invitation or setting up your own pod, try a community pod.

[Disconnect]

Remember when gmail had a waiting list? Email didn't stop working, you just couldn't log into gmail.. Its similar, except there are no features on JD that aren't on the other pods...

[jakewc2 gmail]

Well, the more you write, the more I know you just dont understand the end user, I hope this isnt what Diaspora is going to be about. If it is, it wont get anywhere.......that just makes me sad......

[Mark (theWebalyst.com)]

Consider yourselves invited. You might also like to read my latest blog post at http://theWebalyst.com/blog

Mark
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networking, a blog etc.

[amine kacem]

On 5 juil, 19:36, John Favorite <john.favor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I too would love an invite :)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 1:56 PM, rek2 <rek2gnuli...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > can someone sent me an invite to this email address? I'll like to try it
> > out for the heck of it.
>
> > Thanks
>

> > 2011/7/5 Jarin Udom <jarin.u...@gmail.com>

>
> >> I really like Google+. And Jesus, someone's email signature is out of
> >> control.

Am really waiting for an invite ... my browser and my phone is waiting
for it too :p , and i really want to try googl e+ at least to test
it , can someone send me an invite and with a biggg really thx

[Amirouche Boubekki]

2011/7/9 Ritchie Wilson <rawil...@gmail.com>

I just saw Google+ (I'm not signing up). Seems like they really took a lot of the good ideas from Diaspora and other distributed stuff. Just without the distributed stuff.

They say that there is some non-trivial problems with distributed, it spells « trust », I don't know the ins and outs of the topic, what do they mean with trust in distributed context.

[Yosem Companys]

Hi All,

I don't write very often, but please consider me a point of contact at Diaspora, should you have trouble reaching the guys.  They spend most of their time hacking away, as they should, so it's difficult for them to weigh in on every thread.

Jake, please don't get sad.  We definitely care about the issues people are raising on the list, and we try to turn them into actionable development items.  We may not have the manpower and resources that a Google or Facebook has, but we're definitely focused on making things as friendly and transparent for our users as possible.  

As for the waiting list, we've been doing our best to admit people as fast as possible.  One big step was to have developers test the alpha in order to make sure it wouldn't break easily for beta users.  Another big step that we've been working on is to make sure that our back end is ready to handle a large number of people joining simultaneously.  

If anyone is still waiting for an invite and anxious to try Diaspora out, I'm sure that existing users on this list can help out.  I'm happy to oblige too, as well as to serve as a point of contact for those of you who have questions, comments or issues to discuss.

And please don't allow me to hijack this discussion.  All the points you're raising are very important, and we learn a lot from your feedback.  So please carry on!  We're definitely listening...  :)

Best,

Yosem

[Gerard van Schip]

I have registered for an invite with 6 different email accounts as soon as the invite page was open and never received an invite. If I try to use the same email address I'm told I'm on the list but who in their right mind still has interest after half a year on the waiting list.

Really enjoying g+ and without an invite to the elusive diaspora club I don't see that changing.

Very disappointing.

G

Sent from my iPhone

[jakewc2 gmail]

Well, I understand your frustration, but unlike any of the other sharing
programs, we caught Diaspora even before it had really started
developing it. So even though its taken a long time, you have to
understand things are still in the alpha stage right now. I did try to
send you an invite, but for some reason I cant connect nto the pod right
now, dont know why.....hopefully somebody else might be able to send you
one.

John

[Kurt Padilla]

A little reminder for folks eager to give Diaspora a try: you do not need an invitation. You just need to find a pod with open registration. I've provided a link to where you can do so earlier in the thread.

On Jul 17, 2011 6:40 AM, "jakewc2 gmail" <jak...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Disconnect]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 1:22 AM, Yosem Companys <yo...@joindiaspora.com> wrote:

As for the waiting list, we've been doing our best to admit people as fast as possible.  One big step was to have developers test the alpha in order to make sure it wouldn't break easily for beta users.  Another big step that we've been working on is to make sure that our back end is ready to handle a large number of people joining simultaneously.  

What about the communication? It has kinda gone vaporware - "here's this awesome thing coming up!" "oh, yeah, its really exclusive for -super- special testers only right now".. and then nothing. (Well.. nothing except that code audit security reaming last year.) The whole point of the network is that you don't -have- to wait for your backend to handle it. You can tell that list "hey, btw, the network functions. There are a bunch of pods running already that you can sign up with - there is a list at podupti.me or in the wiki - or you can start up your own if you want."

The network is up, there are a bunch of pods (and probably many more would be started, if people knew it wasn't vaporware.) Sure, anyone who goes to the main page (oops, private only) and then to github, and then starts digging in the bowels of the wiki, will discover that the network is working. But .. seriously? Most people go to the site, see that its still an unchanged cool-people-only block and wander off. (Half the people I know personally on my pod would have set up their own, if they'd had any idea that it works. AFAIK some of them were donators, and they all thought it was vaporware because nothing ever came to the "tell me about diaspora" signup list..)

 

[Patrick]

Also, it should be remembered that the comparison between social
networks is not only about features, but also about network size and
who is there. Diaspora may well turn out to be a better product in
terms of features. The problem is network effects (or network
externalities): it's only interesting to be on a social *network* if a
lot of my friends are there.

This is why G+ is going to win IMHO. Diaspora may well be better in
terms of privacy; but it means it will only attract people who care a
lot about privacy. Realistically, this is only a very minor fraction
of my friends.
Facebook could also settle as a major contender, because whenever I
met someone, it was pretty likely they would have a FB account. Same
thing will surely apply with G+ once they start scaling up, given that
the huge number of people who already have a Gmail address.

Also, Google has been repeatedly under scrutiny for their privacy, and
i think they put a lot of effort into it, and are being super careful
about it, and in general are displaying a lot of good will in that
respect.
Hence, Diaspora will only address the very tiny minority of people who
care for the *extra* privacy concern. And no matter how much I love
the idea of a decentralized social network, I'm not sure I really care
about a social network only made of privacy-obsessed geeks (no offense
intended, I am one of them).

So regarding Diaspora, it might perform better, but size *does*
matter. (Innuendo intended.)