Yesterday I invested in a tech start-up for the first time. The Diaspora Project is self-described as "the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all
distributed open source social network" and is on a mission to decentralise the social web and
put users back in control of their personal data.
Started by four NYU computer science students, the new platform will operate via a distributed network of user's own computers (called "seeds") that connect to each other directly rather than going through centralised servers (like Facebook does). This means that users can aggregate their own and other streams of content in a similar way to Friendfeed, but retain far more control over their own data. As you'd expect the code is going to be released under an open-source software license (aGPL) and there will be a plug-in framework.
Diaspora is interesting for two reasons. In the first instance because of all the questions that are being asked about the complexity of Facebook's privacy settings and how far they have shifted in their treatment of user data. Danah Boyd wrote a typically comprehensive and articulate rant (which is an excellent read) on exactly why Facebook need to be far more transparent than they have been on the issue of user privacy: "The battle that is underway is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It’s a battle over choice and informed consent." I get that we have a choice, and that protecting our data is to a large extent up to us, but I think she makes a good point. It's about informed choices.
Diaspora is also interesting in how it came about and the fact that it is now getting some serious attention from investors. Funding for the project is being crowdsourced through Kickstarter. The initial funding target was $10,000, but at time of writing they have secured funding worth $173,000 from 4,700 separate backers including (apparently) some fairly big names in the tech industry (and also me). And there is still over two weeks to go until the funding deadline.
The point is not whether it will succeed or not, the point is that it is there at all. And that it might do. And if it does it could scale quickly. It is a project born of four computer science students. Four guys who were building a Makerbot who started talking about what a distributed social network might look like. Four guys who noticed that the application they needed didn't exist, so they stopped talking about it and started building it. They "set out to fill the hole in our digital lives".
"With Diaspora, we are reclaiming our data, securing our social connections, and making it easy to share on your own terms. We think we can replace today's centralized social web with a more secure and convenient decentralized network."
For all those large, incumbent media businesses out there, this is your new competition. Young people who want to fill the holes in their digital lives and have the knowledge, enthusiasm and capability to do just that. If you ever doubted the need for your business to operate differently, to be far more agile than it currently is - there's your answer, right there.
This post builds on one I wrote about Diaspora over on The Wall Blog.
