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Comment by ubernostrum | Hacker News Reader

Diaspora's going to do one of two things.

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.

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> 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.

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.

Think Wordpress.

Fried just doesn't want you to have that option for project management. It's not about Diasopora, it's about Basecamp.

Well, wordpress.com isn't a player in the e-mail space, which was the analogy.

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.

Than how do you explain his (successful) campaign against the free google chat that competes with Campfire? Google shut it down, basically, because it's "unfair to J.Fried". Since Google did it, nobody else dare to compete directly with Basecamp, as is.

Diaspora is a paradigm shift, and it will be easier to implement a better Basecamp without single point of registration and billing.

Are you talking about HuddleChat? It was a demo-app and was a blatant rip-off of Campfire.

Nobody dares to compete with Basecamp? Are you kidding me?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_project_managemen...

Huddle-chat was free. They shut it down for no reason but J Fried loud "Google is evil" complains. Techcrunch here http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/08/google-to-close-huddlechat/ Gigaom here: http://gigaom.com/2008/04/09/in-the-huddlechat-debacle-a-les... So we have to pay for Campfire. And nobody did Basecamp as is, which is not that complicated, for the same reason.

You're rambling.

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.

But not in Google Apps! Google had no problem to add tasks (talk to remember the milk). But why not project management? BTW - it's fair. J.Fried is using his ammunition to protect his business. But let's just call it what it is.

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.

Your comments indicate less of a reasoned argument on the topic, and more of a personal animosity toward Jason Fried, 37Signals or both.

Perhaps you should step back and take a deep breath?

Not a bit. They are a great company, great products and great inspiration.

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.

And you tell me, please, why there is no project management solution in Google Apss

Because they haven't wanted to build one....

You are not trolling, are you?

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.

> You are not trolling, are you?

Of course he is. Isn't that obvious.

nope, he is trying to block the finance momentum. they are going to need every $, which he and his provocative blog will not

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.

Is it really that provacative to say that an early stage venture will fail?

Please. Somehow I doubt that Jason Fried, of all people, is losing sleep because of a vaporware product in a completely different space.

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.

So 4 CS grads raising below seed round range for a much needed project and supported by so many people is a Curse? For THAT he could not sleep?

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.

What makes you think Fried is losing sleep? Man, after reading the rest of your posts in this thread, you really need to stop and re-evaluate the rationality of your opinions.

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.

You've not making any sense. Diaspora is a Facebook competitor. Arguing that Diaspora threatens Basecamp implies that Facebook itself threatens Basecamp. Which isn't true.

And, even if that were true, it will be still be wrong because vaporware isn't a threat.

Correction, diaspora is a wannabe facebook competitor.

From what I heared here and there, one of their plans is try to "embed" Facebook, allowing people to view Facebook info or switch to "private" P2P mode when the other one has diaspora that. So it's not either/or.

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.

Right. I'm sure a large number Facebook's current users have devices on their networks that are more than capable of hosting an HTTP server (and maybe already do): the aforementioned DSL/cable modems, plus wireless routers, Roku boxes, video game consoles, etc.

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 ones home PC is not an option. First, it needs it to be turned on 24/7, and limited upload speed of ADSL is a waste of bandwidth and would be impractical. Also you can look at logs and spy on what is being uploaded, unless there is an encrypted copy of all your files that are sharing.

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.

I think your logic is a little too binary. There is a huge range of other possibilities between a hard 'succeed' or 'fail'. That is how startups work.

1. Everything in this industry "starts with a few geeks". Including FB and that colorful logo company.

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.

Actually, iirc Facebook started with college students in Harvard and other US universities, not geeks.

big diff

Yes huge difference. It still amazes me that some geeks have trouble identifying that they are not their own target market.

yap, they clearly didn't get any support, feedback or momentum.

Google seems pretty attached to their advertising-subsidized business model; Diaspora hosting might be more likely to come from Amazon with a "consumer" version of EC2. Or Apple could decide to fight Facebook by adding Diaspora to MobileMe, but I think that's a long shot.

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