Diaspora's Curse - Jason Fried
37signals.com
37signals.com
Option one, with approximately 98% probability, is "fail hard". A few geeks will run nodes and brag about it on places like HN, and that'll be it.
Option two is that Diaspora succeeds, which will require some way around making everyone run their own node; basically, some company with the infrastructure to step in and host services for people, for cheap or preferably free. If an existing company -- one which already offers services most people use -- were to do this and make it easy enough, they'd probably end up running a huge percentage of Diaspora.
What sort of company would do that, you ask? Why, the company which already has all the info Facebook doesn't know about you, and would love to get access to the info Facebook does. You know, that search engine with the colorful logo.
2. Let's do the math: FB valuation is 25B. 2% chances * 25B = Expectation of 500M. In these terms, a 250K kickapp funding is super-super-smart move :)
3. The question is not if Diaspora succeed but if the open source community can produce a distributed solution that will have non-geeky clients. It takes time, sure, but you have got to start somewhere (maybe the Flock social browser should team up as a non-geeky client?)
4. Hosting is no problem. It's like Wordpress hosting, it's done everywhere for cheap (and these are the bad news for J.Fried)
5. Google or FB? I prefer Goog.
And that's fine. But because they'll commit to integrating into the open standard that Diaspora defines, at any given time, you can take your friends and leave.
If GMail (apps) starts messing with the privacy of my e-mail, or wants me to pay more than I want to, or changes the layout to something I don't find pleasing, instead of joining a group complaining, I can leave them in a heartbeat. The people I exchange emails with won't notice a bit. The promise of Diaspora is giving me that option for social networks.
There will be a GMail, there will be an Exchange server and there will be a buggy open-source self-hosted PHP-app (and many many more) in the Diaspora universe.
Fried just doesn't want you to have that option for project management. It's not about Diasopora, it's about Basecamp.
And regarding Basecamp/Diaspora: I can already get most of the same functionality I can get from Basecamp in plenty of other products, both hosted and open-source. Basecamp is popular because it's really, really good, not by a long shot because they are the only option.
A project management application on the Diaspora platform would have zero advantage over Basecamp because of that. And even if it would have, Diaspora is open, and 37S could just implement Basecamp as a node.
Fried says Diaspora is going to fail because it's the provocative thing to do, and that's what Fried does on his blog.
Diaspora is a paradigm shift, and it will be easier to implement a better Basecamp without single point of registration and billing.
Nobody dares to compete with Basecamp? Are you kidding me?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_project_managemen...
Basecamp alternative: http://lessprojects.com/ - Status: Not shut down.
Basecamp alternative: https://www.hoisthq.com/ - Status: Private beta
Free, open-source Campfire alternative: https://echowaves.com/ - Status: Not shut down.
And these are just the ones I know about (OK, I had to Google for a second to find EchoWaves).
Final nail in the coffin: If 37S was "competing" by shutting down competitors, why are they innovating their products at the pace they are? The Campfire of today doesn't look like the Campfire HuddleChat ripped off.
Reg innovative: Huddle chat was written in weeks. We can only guess where it be now. Basecamp is great, but very similar to what it was 2 years ago
Anyway guys, we all should only hope the best of luck for this Diaspora thing instead of bashing them. That's all I'm saying. Mr. Fried could wait at least until the finance period is done.
Perhaps you should step back and take a deep breath?
I just think that this post is ugly. He could wait a while, let them finish the finance, let them work, and in a few months write about the results. The rush, the hurry, the strong word ("a curse") is - to me - too bold to be pure "startup/product advice" issue.
I am sorry, but do you think that Jason can "shut down" something that Google makes, just with his writing?
And seriously, the idea of Diaspora competing with BaseCamp takes some imagination! At such an abstract level, almost any web app could be said to compete with any other web app.
Of course he is. Isn't that obvious.
What's the rush to bash Diaspora and make backers back off? so people put about 20$ each for seed round in an important project for seemingly honest guys. It's not that he has to stop a Maydof scheme.
The rush to disturb it, the strong word ("curse") are the result of deeper interest to stop them.
Or do you think that somehow Diaspora will be a product management solution? Will it also do my taxes? Perhaps it will print bingo cards, organize my book collection, and bake the world's tastiest pies?
This is exactly what Fried is talking about: When you launch a pure-vapor product you encourage people to project fantasies onto it. That sends you lots and lots of false signals and sets the public up to be disappointed.
A pity that this attitude comes from a startup news site. Again: It's a paradigm shift that should enable to create new class of web applications in "nodes" instead of "central hubs". And all central hub owners, who make their revenues from the old paradigm, should be worried. We have seen this shifts wiping out companies so fast before. It's not something to laugh about.
He is just trying to stop the finance momentum.
37signals is not some machiavellian puppetmaster. Fried posted a simple opinion piece on a hot topic and you immediately start frothing at the mouth like a times square end-of-worlder. Get a grip.
And, even if that were true, it will be still be wrong because vaporware isn't a threat.
Concerning hosting, yeah there's google etc, but as they seem to have discussed with Elben Moglen, they will possibly also consider his ideas about self-hosting on small pluggable computers. And yeah, you probably already hava one: your DSL box. Some providers could play a a cool move on this one.
edit: I don't know if they will have the time, but with encrypted replicated data and external data stores, many things are possible. E.g. you could host the most sensible personnal info and links on your box backed up somewhere and have your photos at Flickr.
Also, why not just host on the home's PC? Look at what the botnets have done. No technical knowledge required, easy installation, automatic upgrades, and no maintenance for the "host" (double meaning intentional).
Hosting on google or similar, would defeat the point of a decentralisation. As more people join it, setup their nodes and share files, there may be redudant copies of data. It is just faster and cheaper to host it on a single big server.
Normal users want to communicate, they do not care about installing software or anything more complicated than a simple web registration form.
A feature I would like is to be able to export a copy of all the data I can see and use it offline e.g for backup. Currently Facebook does not have this option.
Jason's third point is, I feel, the strongest. People aren't contributing to Diaspora because of Diaspora, they're contributing as an act against Facebook. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.
I'm not sure if that's a good thing. It's one thing to get in front of a movement and ride that to success. It's another to get in front of a movement that's predicated largely on hate. Diaspora would have to turn this into something positive (Internet users for privacy!) as opposed to just letting the anti-FB vibe run its course.
PS: not related, but here's a thought: why is it necessary to have a special node system? Won't a super-simple, super-private social network work just as well? Facebook's problems isn't so much with the tech as it is with the company philosophy - they seem to want to do everything in their power to screw you over for their benefit. Change the philosophy and Facebook becomes a much harder target to hit.
Edit: Changed kids to people as I am younger in intellect and age and it felt silly when I read it again.
And although my comments are demoted here, the truth is that distributed "nodes" is a threat to the "central hub" owners, including J Fried, especially when your customers are geeks who can easily install and config the distributed thing. Paradigm shifts can wipe out other companies very quickly, and Fried knows it.
2. 250K+ for 4 people will give them the opportunity to focus and advance fast without financial side effects.
3. Since when the J. Fried camp is so worried about specs? They want to build a tool to scrape the data, store it local and make it avail. via standard protocol. Nothing to invent, all the tools are in place, but a lot of hard work on the boring integration/config details and testing.
And to the point again: if such thing work I guess it will not be that hard to include a tasks and project management layer that will hurt Basecamp.
2) I have said that before and will say it again. Sure seeding is way above that. But those seed money go to startups which make money. The VCs make more money off it. Nobody is getting money from this.
It's a PR to stop a competing trend, a paradigm shift that sooner or later threatens his core business.
His subtext is sorta "listen, don't give them more money because it will spoil them and there will be no product."
I see no other way to start such a project than a few geeks sitting and building it, and nothing will help them more than a few months freedom from financial distractions.
Question is if you and me will install and use these nodes?
Now this 37 signal's guy might say hey, the expectations are too high. Yes it is. But like any it is a problem to be solved. Just off the top of my head frequent release of the progress would migitate this risk. Maybe code or Screenshots to manage expectation.
Look at Obama, tons of expectation or any other popular president, did they deliever as expected? No. I think everybody here knows that the presidents aren't going to deliver as expected. So, it is with these guys. With all the hype, people can figure it out. Hey they might not do as well as expected, but we can atleast try to be apart of history.
Even Obama can handle it. (Not to mention 4 dedicated CS grads)
What I was trying to point out some people are going to be disappointed regardless. All there is to do is manage it.
Yes, there will be disappointments. But it's not "a curse", a healthy 250K seed-stage worth is not the end of the world, and as someone pointed here: it's an open source seed. It will grow. Fried should not bash them like that, unless he has some special interest - which he does. The Diaspora paradigm threatens his core business and he knows it.
That's really very important. What you just said better describes what is my problem with them getting so much money. Essentially they are selling junk for at least 50% of the backers. The ideas are always different in one way or another than implementation thus people are paying up for something they think is what they want
Bullshit - what they need is tearing into now (just like this; politely) so they realise that they can't wing it on the good vibe. They gotta produce something good off this money; otherwise it's a potential disaster!
Call it a reality check.
37 signals, Getting real: "Have an enemy - pick a fight": http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch02_Have_an_Enemy.php
Apparently Mr. Fried just picked them both. To his behalf, he picked the right one. In a way, Basecamp is "Facebook for project management", and Diaspora distributed paradigm can threaten both.
For a hypothetical open project it might be good to distinguish between "contributing" (code/docs/whatever) and "donating" (money).
No, it won't. Sure, central hubs can be private and simple, but they can't guarantee that they will stay so. Only distributed system could give you such guarantees.
How diaspora can succeed: do the same thing Facebook does, but fix the privacy.
How diaspora can fail: by making some pie in the sky social networking platform that will elude most non-technical people. Unfortunately, it sounds like it's going this direction.
I truly want to see Diaspora work. And it doesn't have to be complicated...at the moment, all they need is a decent social network (one that's built with the help of a graphic designer) and chances are you'll have at least one new user for everyone who donated.
Lastly, make it easy for people to move from Facebook to Diaspora. Ease of use will be the pass/fail here.
Get everyone I know from high school and college using it and I might sign up, but I don't want to have to send invites, and I also don't want to be invited unless everyone I know is already there.
Square that circle and they win.
My point is, adopting a creed of proactivity is for the good of us all.
This project is going to wildly succeed because it solves a major pain point for millions of people. They will deliver technically impressive software, like most people right out of school do. It will naturally take less than three months.
It will be so easy to host your own web server that my 52 year old aunt will not even need to ask my 14 year old cousin to do it, but my 14 year old cousin will do it anyway, because this will be so cool it will be like a boy band had a slumber party where they gave away free iPods and icecream.
We will see user adoption curves more impressive than anything previously because users, having gotten a taste of viral engagement mechanisms over the last several years, are screaming "Send me more invites!!!" and companies which control viral channels are making them more open with each passing week.
The New York Times will continue championing this particular company, because they are a respected news organization in it for the long haul and not desperate to prove that they get this social media thing. Indeed, their embrace of Diaspora will be as enduring as their embrace of Second Life and Twitter.
People will flock to pay for social networking, because their biggest issue with Facebook was that it was so "#$'("# free. The open source community, which is overwhelmingly charity by 20-something hipsters and not work product at multi-billion dollar technology firms, will embrace this product more than they have Mozilla and Linux precisely because it solves no need for any corporation anywhere.
What is the definition of success here though? A super-niche social network that privacy-geeks use? The idealism is understandable but misguided. These guys won't touch Facebook by trying to make a social network with a feature better at X - in this case privacy - thats not how giants get toppled.
Facebook won social networking, Google won search. Each will be beat by their core business being displaced by something else, not someone coming along and doing what they do incrementally better. (e.g. socially shared links driving down search traffic is Facebook indirectly biting a chunk out of Google's business)
Creating exclusivity can create publicity in its own right and increase expectation. It can also fail though - look at Google Wave.
He did succeed to kill google chat client to make us pay for Campfire. But it was easy PR against "evil" Google. This time it will not work.
Given that Diaspora has yet to be written, I doubt that J. Fried is particularly quaking in his boots regarding the hypothetical creation of a hypothetical plugin using a hypothetical API to provide a hypothetical service that would hypothetically be so great as to kill Basecamp.
Disclaimer: I dont use basecamp, have never used basecamp and have absolutely no idea why someone would want to kill it.
What matters is the trend, and Fried is smart enough to see it.
What unfair here is that he spoils it in the middle of the finance period. They got traction, they look like smart and honest guys. He can bash them one day after the finance is done.
Disclaimer: I use Basecamp and I love it
Slashdot misses you already, the door is --->> http://www.slashdot.org/ that way.
For the record, all that Jason Frieds posting has done is give more attention to diaspora.com, and will probably result in more funding.
$170k = 4 young inexperienced people for a year to take on Facebook, WRONG.
This should be thought of an open source project, they should use the $170k to coordinate a large open source project to create this with experts from all over the web. I'm talking 40-80 regular contributors, 400 or more causal contributors. This is perfectly possible given the press they have gotten so far.
They need a leader, it's not clear to me which of the 4 is that leader, but they need one.
Also, whilst their eventual goal might be to take on Facebook, this is 5 years off at least. Facebook spent 2 years only in colleges and universities to get critical mass. Diaspora could try the same or work with niche interests like Ning does or do company social networks like Yammer do, to get started.
They will not take FB themselves, but this project will start the underlying infra. The "BitTornet" of social networks. Than we will need the clients, the eco system etc. But it's the first essential step.
And guess what? one of Diaspora's applications will be a distributed project management layer. And the FB of project management, Basecamp, will not like it.
So we better keep supporting it for the remaining 15 days than listening to a the "closed system" competitor(Fried).
And of course there is the fact that the story is the money, not the idea, which is the worst sign of the bunch in my opinion!
By doing it this way, they got to strike while the iron was hot. Right as Open Graph and the dozens of "Facebook is pure evil" posts were fresh in people's minds, they asked for money. With startups, the best time to raise money is when people badly want to give it to you, and it's no different here. If they had waited a few months, not only might they have had trouble paying their living expenses for the summer and their tuition bills in the fall, but they also, had they asked for donations after a summer of getting a crude v1 together, would have had a much harder time getting the money because Facebook privacy concerns wouldn't be as strongly in people's minds as they are now. Do you think they'd get anywhere near $170k with a v1--which would be nowhere near ready to kill Facebook--but in a few months when most people don't care anymore? In fact, it's quite possible that having a crude version 1 today would get them less money. Right now, they're selling nothing but ideas, which are easy for anti-Facebookers to latch onto. If they had a rudimentary implementation, potentially donors would be thinking about all of the ways in which the product sucks, not all of the ways in which it could be great. By having no product to criticize, they get the donors to dream.
And at least this way, they're set financially. They'll still probably fail, but probabilistically, they were going to fail either way. This way, if they do manage to ignore the hype and get a great product built, they'll definitely have money when they need it.
Another way that this does help them is something PG has pointed to--fear of failure. If they were just friends hacking this thing together in their spare time, maybe they would have made some grand statements to a few friends and family members, but there'd be a pretty low barrier to saying, "oh, building something with Facebook's capabilities is extremely hard. And even if we do a decent job, we probably won't get any users. Let's go play video games." But now, they can't give up entirely. They have to at least build something that sort of gets the job done. Thousand of people gave them money to do so, so they have a duty to do it. And millions of people read the articles about Diaspora and will read about it again if they fail. If Diaspora becomes a joke, every potential employer of theirs will think of them as "the guys who failed miserably at building Diaspora." All of a sudden, failure comes with a very high cost.
It's a nasty post to kill the finance momentum.
Please: J. Fried JUST FIGHTS FUTURE COMPETITION. Facebook is a central hub. Basecamp is a central hub. That's the whole story. A project management plug-in to Diaspora that can freely connect people is a threat to Basecamp.
When Google introduced their free chat client, a full product ready to use, he complained about "evil" (and forced us to pay for campfire). Now they are not evil, than it's the product.
You may disagree with him about the initial odds, but I think you agree with his main point: the massive funding is good for Diaspora*.
An employer who would negatively judge a teenager on the failure of what is essentially a summer project would be very, very stupid.
Really? Are there any serious geeks that haven't hashed out a basic architecture (napkin-level) for a distributed Facebook-replacement over a beer or some coffee? I know I have, twice. The difference between me and them? A pretty website, a video and (probably the kicker) patronage by the NYT.
I agree that it shouldn't reflect negatively on them, quite the opposite, but are we back to 1998, where a good idea, "out of the box" and CS-grad in the same sentence is a qualification?
Let's judge their results then. If it's a failure despite their best efforts, I certainly wouldn't count that against them, if they've learned from their mistakes and have written some good code in the process.
Depends on how you define success/failure of course - I very much doubt they will make a dent on Facebook but if they come up with an open standard for distributed social networks others can build on, that counts very much a success in my book.
Absolutely, that was my point! I reacted to your statement that you'd hire them even if they'd failed miserably. If they're able to keep focus on what's important and end the summer with a concrete, open standard, even with little or no software, that's not a miserable failure, that's a little short of the goal.
But there are many, many more modes of failure than not getting people to leave Facebook by august. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's not even their goal.
Also: the drive, initiative, imagination and brazenness to get it moving and get everyone talking about it.
Running a basic application on a web server seems trivial to nerds, but to average users it seems impossible.
That seems rather different here where users are asked to do things that in them selves are not obvious. The users don't know how to download a node and the idea that someone you trust is going to run the node for you just isn't a very convincing idea IMHO.
What has been done with pocket computers can be done with servers. An already set up Sheeva plug is all it takes. And it can be bough instead of downloaded.
Diaspora should have a similar model. You can use a hosted node, or one your ISP provides you when you sign up, just like they provide you with an email address.
We don't, but we should, eventually. What you describe is only the first step. The ideal world clearly lies in easy, ubiquitous self hosting.
Does anyone think my mom or my sisters give a damn about facebook privacy issues? NO! The only people that seem to are the types that come to HN and we all, for the most part, run our own webservers with our own blogs and pictures and soforth anyway.
Unfortunately, this is not enough for them to switch. But if setting up and configuring a personal mail server at home took 5 minutes and no help, they would switch.
Now, we need someone to make Eben Moglen's "freedom box", to make is as sleek, as usable, and as cool as the iPhone. Then, people will buy it. Maybe not over privacy concerns, but at least, privacy will become a selling point instead of the major technical hurdle it currently is.
$170k split four (or more) ways actually doesn't sound like much, especially when you consider their location (NYC), and their massive student debt. NYU isn't a cheap school.
On a personal note, I lived in Harlem on a $24k/yr grad student salary this past year. It was a reasonably comfortable living, but being poor in New York City adds a lot of stresses to life that don't exist elsewhere. Walking around piles of dog shit and trash every day takes its toll after awhile.
I was actually surprised how well I made out, considering I was making the least amount of money I have ever made since age 19 and living in the most expensive city I have ever lived in my life. That being said I could be a lot more comfortable with just a slightly higher income.
I'm totally positive about the concept, but I always thought one should get motivated on his own, start the project, and beg for money to go further. This seems it's done the opposite way - give us the cheese so we start coding - and donating a video with a chalkboard I feel is a bit too much, for the moment.
Still, I'm very curious about this project and wish them best.
Having money lets you rest on your laurels. They could live off of that money with no work on the project for two years, more if they moved somewhere cheaper.
Would you work harder if you had two years' living expenses in the bank, or if you had to make enough sales to pay rent in two weeks?
> and their massive student debt.
As someone in this position, the answer is easy: deferment. It's really easy when you're making next to no money.
That said, I tend to agree with most of what Jason said. Their pitch is much more sales than substance at this point.
This one simple thing defines success in the majority. I really dig much of Jason Fried's insight.
- firstly it is a very complex sounding solution (which is great in a way - I love technically interesting ideas/research)
- secondly it's not a direct solution to the problem.
The issue, as I see it, is that Facebook have a stranglehold over the social net. The solution isn't about hosting our own content (that is clearly impractical for the majority of social users). The solution is about splitting the infrastructure between multiple providers - but in a way that allows a fully integrated experience for users.
That way the "industry" will be self regulating (because if a company looks bad people can migrate quickly away from it).
In fact, they're so dissatisfied, that they're willing to put their money where their mouth is, which is a very strong signal to send to Facebook.
Even if diaspora goes nowhere, it might still have a positive impact on Facebook.
Then again, it's not Diaspora guys' fault that the press seem to have taken to them as saviours of the world.
On a related note, @jacobian has predicted Diaspora to be the new Chandler :) http://twitter.com/jacobian/status/14120142558
This gets the initial pressure off of them, allows for a large amount of audience participation, and could attract a lot of programming talent to their project.
I'm more interested in the idea that is could compete with Facebook at all. Facebook has become too big for a small startup to just step up and replace it.
The reason I say this is that startups tend to follow the founders' vision, then get iterated based on customer feedback.
But "replacing Facebook" isn't a solidified enough vision to act upon. The project team would need to first find out what "Facebook" means to the average user. Because, like it or not, the readers of HN are NOT the average FB user. There would need to be some dedicated research done to determine what feature set would even appeal to the masses.
Once that is done, then we can talk solutions and build a team to make it happen.
But trying to point at any extant project and say it is the replacement project... I just don't buy it.
I'm starting to think this was something one of them through out as an awesome idea, they said hell yeah why not... and then the money REALLY started pouring in, and then the Times showed up... and it's just snowballed.
I wonder how serious they were even planning on being before it got so big.
Mine you, I hope I'm wrong, but it's just a gut feeling I have.
Surely it got many people to read into it and its highly likely some other group will make a version which actually works.
Is it envy?
Diaspora needs to be exactly what they said it will be. To do that they need to Ignore Everybody (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1350292) and stick to their original timeline :)
Lets also not forget that they've actually got some code. That's better than some bloggers seem to realize.
I can only hope these kids have connections with people (and resources, such as PG essays) which can help guide them in making smart decisions. And I hope they listen.
There already are other social networks that have plenty of users, but not enough to be a Facebook killer: Orkut (remember that? Apparently still big in Brazil, currently 100 million active users worldwide according to Wikipedia) and NetLog (big in Europe at 65 million users).
No matter how much traction Diaspora gets, I think it cannot possibly beat those.
They could turn money down but at this stage they already have the attention and that money could fund years of an open source project instead of having to worry about supporting themselves later to if things work out.
Did Jason give us the reasons this one will fail? Or just make the general prediction we all knew already anyway?
Sure it might take most people longer to get something up with $150K than with $0K, but that isn't true 100% of the time. VC might be bad for most, but certainly not for all.
The talk in absolutes to get their point across - its a necessary method since everyone else is doing it.
What Jason is saying is common business sense: don't sell something you haven't built. Build something as you're selling it, iterating on the product and adjusting to customer feedback. When the product gains traction, take external money (if needed and desired) to scale the business.
Facebook already had (measurable) traction _before_ they took VC funding.
"Your thirteen year-old sister will crap her pants when she's told to download a social "node" on her computer in order to tell her friends that Abercrombie is having a sale."
But you're right, for most people this will be a big hurdle.
Using Diaspora should be no different than "downloading the facebook page to your computer and running it on your browser", for example.
Instead of "on some ISP/hosting co.", you mean to say "Google".
If Diaspora ever takes off -- and the odds are stacked against it -- then it's a very safe bet that Google will simply host nodes for free. Which means Google will have access to all the info they already have on you, plus all the info Facebook would've had.
This does not lead to the Glorious Distributed People's Republic of Privacy.
The real problems are hardware price, asymmetric bandwidth, and the filtering of some ports, like SMTP. These problems will be tackled when we collectively acknowledge the importance of privacy.
It will take time (just see the success of web based mail), but I think it will eventually happen. The recent Facebook scandals are a little spark that may lit a fire. And I bet there will be many such sparks in the future.
In short, the Glorious Distributed People's Republic of Privacy won't happen tomorrow, nor next year. But 20 years from now doesn't seems unrealistic.
Because sooner than later we will see plug-ins that enable distributed project management.
As these guys say, we don't need a centralized hub for social network. We also don't need one for projects (Basecamp).
It's the Campfire story again: Than he had an echo against "evil" Google. but what can he say to a few nice guys going open source? If Mr. Fried didn't roll his campaign against google free chat client, we would have a free one instead of paying for campfire. BUT HE WILL USE HIS ALLEGED "GREATER GOOD" VOICE TO ELIMINATE ANY COMPETITION.
As a "central hub" owner he has a strong interest here.
Diaspora barrier will be for non geeks, to install and configure the "nodes". But since many of his customers are geeks, they will have no trouble to switch.