Diaspora, the open source social network and potential Facebook challenger, will be ready to launch on September 15, according to the project’s developers. Diaspora is meant to be an alternative to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks allowing you to share content such as photos, status updates, links, etc.
In a blog post on August 26, the developers said Diaspora is working and they’re happy with it, although it’s unclear what the product will look like.
Chatter around Diaspora shot up yesterday after the announcement.
But overall chatter around Diaspora is minuscule compare to Facebook.
Chatter around Diaspora has been slightly more positive than Facebook (although bear in mind the massive difference in overall content).
In the last two days, Diaspora was only mentioned in less than 3% of Facebook related posts. Should Facebook be concerned yet? Google Buzz was mentioned in 4%, Twitter in 17& and Google Me in only .04% of Facebook posts comparatively.
August 29, 2010
Diaspora was an emotional reaction to Facebook’s major change around privacy which was relatively close on the heels of the Beacon fiasco.
Should Facebook have competition, surely because if there is a real market there, competition would naturally evolve. But this is the issue, market. people willing to spend money for access or time because of content. The problem with the latter is that content in social networks is created only if there are people attending. It’s just like a bar, it’s good because of the content provided by the patrons mostly, not by the booze in the bottle. That content is mostly commodity or of little difference that would attract those to attend.
Will it be a niche social network? at the very least it’s an check on Facebook until it proves otherwise.