In the early days of P2P networks, people used them to exchange MP3 files using Napster and Kazaa, until the Music industry stop them with lawsuits. Although they were used only shortly, it was amazing to see what power these networks have. Today people use Facebook to share information, although it would be perfectly legal to share their own information (files, photos, tweets, etc.) over a P2P network. And it would be technically much better: faster, easier and more secure.
It is easy to build a file- and information-sharing site for a few thousand Harvard students, even if you hack it together with unstructered PHP, but it is much harder to build a site for billions of users. If you use the wrong architecture, it becomes a nightmare. And the architecture of Facebook is wrong. They have allegedly 500 million users, but only one site and one datacenter. It is a scalability nightmare. Facebook is evil. And if it shuts down tomorrow, you would theoretically lose everything you ever posted to your profile. Congratulations.
Obviously, people want to share their information with their “friends”. And they want to store it in a safe and secure place. But who said it all has to be stored in a single location? Wouldn’t it be better to store it on their computers *and* on those of their friends? A P2P architecture would fulfill both wishes. The redundant storage is the perfect protection again data loss, and it enables fast data sharing.
The idea of Diaspora shows how it could or should be: personal data belongs to personal servers. Your photos, your memories, your data and your informations belong to you and no one else. A person can host a seed on an own server, and this data can be copied only to places where it belongs: to the immediate family, extended family, maybe even a few close relatives or friends.
The Diaspora blog says about Diaspora:
“Diaspora aims to be a distributed network, where totally separate computers connect to each other directly, will let us connect without surrendering our privacy. We call these computers ‘seeds’. A seed is owned by you, hosted by you, or on a rented server. Once it has been set up, the seed will aggregate all of your information: your facebook profile, tweets, anything.”
A major challenge for Diaspora is that the majority of the people consists of non-technically oriented users. Facebook targets this non-technically oriented crowd and offers them an easy way to share information (“We will connect you to your friends if you give us all your private data”). If Facebook alienates people *and* Diaspora manages to attract the non-technically oriented crowd with a super-simple UI, then it will have a real chance to be successful. I hope it will.
At the moment looks like Facebook is unbeatable. Can Diaspora still win? Yes, it can win. First of all it can win the hearts of the users. And it can be the better platform, with the right architecture for the right purpose. Facebook can not grow anymore. Diaspora can, and it can do it right. When it comes to sharing large amounts of data, P2P wins again centralized central-server architecture in every aspect: performance, reliability, scalability, storage, protection against network partitioning, etc.. I am a fan of underdogs. May the underdog win.
4 Lines of Code 
I admire that Diaspora is trying to create a utopian social network where everyone controls their own data… I admire entrepreneurs and startups that manage to capture the attention of investors, just like they have.
BUT-
I’m not sure what Diaspora, or it’s faithful followers, gets out of attacking Facebook consistently. It makes them sound like a crybaby. If Diaspora is indeed a better option, then they should use all the money they’ve been raising and hire themselves a good marketing firm to help them stir up the pot. Claiming that Facebook is EVIL isn’t doing anything for them except making them sound like a jealous sibling wanting the attention of his/her parent.
Will Diaspora ever amass half a billion users eventhough it claims to have better structure than Facebook? Only time will tell… in the meantime, leave Facebook alone, it’s an OPT-IN website not a form of government with an iron fist that forces people to give up their information. If Facebook is so EVIL and people have such a big problem with it’s privacy terms, let me remind them that they CHOSE to join and divulge a plethora of information they deem important… but no one FORCED them to join.
It’s simple. If you don’t like Facebook, don’t use it.
If Diaspora thinks it’s better than Facebook then they will eventually come out on top…. who cares about the PHP code? All people care about is the EXPERIENCE they are receiving, so even if Facebooks code is whack, they sure deliver on user experience…. half a billion users seem to agree, you can find the proof on that one central server.
Who cares about the PHP code? Well the developers do. The Facebook code is a mess on an epic scale. 500 developers working on unstructured, historically grown PHP code can not produce a clean application. Historically grown code is always complex. Facebook is the best example of bad practices magnified to enterprise scale. First you hack together a social network site for a few students in PHP. That’s simple. It is bad practice to hack something together in PHP, but it does not matter for a small site. But if you magnify it to enterprise scale, it becomes a nightmare. That’s one point. The other point is that Facebook acts evil. It claims to own the private data of the people. It does not let people out once they are in. It makes complete surveillance possible. It says it is free but the price is all your private data.
Ok let me restate my question- aside from developers, do you really think the masses care about the back end programming? This is all mumbo jumbo to them. You don’t hear the average FB user complain about the whack PHP programming do you?
Also, Facebook will delete your account if you ask them to.
Acts evil? As in implementing a business model where they use all the data users spew? Facebook doesn’t demand that people blabber on and on about stuff, much less demands you put your private data… you give them a certain amount of information in exchange for access to create a profile. Social security numbers, drivers license numbers, credit card info… none of that is required, none of that is given out nor required.
People willing check in to places- if anything that scares me more than FB using their users pics or data for advert targeting. Think about the dangers of someone stalking another person that is consistently publishing where they are and who they’re with? It is the user acting on the services… FB, if anything, is an enabler for that behavior but again users CHOOSE to provide this data.
And I repeat…. Facebook is not a requirement for living or socializing, it is a product we use if we choose. Facebook doesn’t dig in your dumpster for any data, users WILLINGLY provide it.
If people think FB is evil, don’t join. If they want out, do so. I don’t see what the big deal is to be honest. If Diaspora can build something better, markets it effectively and harnesses the power of P2P networking- Bravo! I’ll be the first in line to pat them on the back and say, “Well done!’ if that helps.
No, the masses do not care about back end programming. The uneducated masses are indeed one reason why Facebook is successful. The other reason is the buzz created by the media: it is a paradise for marketing and media. But there is something fundamentally wrong with this paradise. If the Department of the Interior would act like Facebook, people would go crazy. The Department of the Interior stores private data, too, but it does not try to make an IPO. They protect and support the common good.
When does a company become evil? If the behavior is morally objectionable or if it tries to deceive people. Facebook does this. It lures people in but does not let them out. It is not the only company who does this, many global telecommunication companies do the same by luring people into contracts which are hard to cancel. Facebook only does it on a new scale. Facebook acts evil, because it tortures the own developers and the developers who have to write apps for it. Developers have to enter the credit card info to validate the account. They are tormented by an everchanging code which is a mess on epic scale. They are tortured by the foolish idea to store the world’s private information in a centralized place.
Should I continue? Look at Google, they think you can make money without doing evil. Developers and scientists like Google. Google organizes the world’s information and makes it universally accessible and useful. Facebook locks the world’s information in a proprietary format and makes it universally accesible to advertisers and government agencies. Do you see the difference?
Uneducated Masses?
I agree there are many stupid people, but to cluster the world into “uneducated masses” and “developers who care about backend PHP programming” is a bit extreme. There are many educated people, millions, who don’t care about PHP or your absurd take on FB’s evil doings… many of us use Facebook because it’s FUN and it keeps us connected, it keeps us SOCIAL on a virtual level.
Paradise for marketing and media?
If by that you mean company’s are fishing where the fish are… well, do you blame them? HALF a billion potential consumers and counting… I say potential because in all honesty, FB ads don’t work all that well. The click through rate is astonishingly low- you know why? Because people don’t care about those ads, and in all honesty, FB’s ad model is a hell of alot better thany Myspace, Youtube and Google- wanna know why? Because they don’t try to BOMBARD you with banner ads that grab your attention…. FB wanted to make something cool and has kept the ad space to a minimum… but if ad agencies, marketers and businesses want to purchase those ad spaces to try and grab our attention, well they migh succeed on a VER LOW scale, but other than that, they are wasting their money. And yes, the media does hype things up- it’s what they do.
Comparing FB to the Department of the Interior?
You’re seriously comparing a social network to an entity that by definition “protects America’s natural resources and heritage, honors our cultures and tribal communities, and supplies the energy to power our future”… wow. Facebook isn’t a government entity. It wasn’t designed for any other purpose than to allow people to overshare their every insignificant life moment with the world, well, it was supposed to be just to keep in touch with friends but a quick glance at many of the posts and you get my point. Facebook doesn’t have to exist, if it goes “poof” tomorrow, life will go on. There is nothing on Facebook that I can’t live without… it’s a collection of ramblings, pictures and comments on other’s ramblings and pictures. I don’t store sensitive material on FB, it’s on my external drive and hard drive….
Lures people and doesn’t let them out?
They don’t lure anyone in… it’s human psyche to follow one another and gather in clusters. That’s why we had tribes in the past, cities nowadays… we’re hard wired to socialize, and that’s what people are doing on FB. If you ask FB to delete your account- they will.
Tortures developers?
I develop small apps for FB and I haven’t been tortured. I don’t know why FB changes so much, but I guarantee you if I ever get tired of it, I’ll stop developing for my clients. But those changes keep my abilities ‘fluid”, if you will, as it mimicks the real world and it’s ever changing technology and I’m challenged to overcome change in order to move forward.
The U.S. tortures terrorists…. FB encourages innovation and dares you to keep up. I’d rather try and keep up with FB.
World’s private information?
WHAT PRIVATE INFORMATION? If you gauge your life by the possibility that FB might crash and you might lose comments and photos that you uploaded…. you need to step out into the real world and take a breath of fresh air. If Facebook crashes and falls deep into the San Andreas fault taking with it DIGITAL information that in most cases is meaningless info regarding who you’re with at dinner or how your baby just burped for the first time…. maybe it would do all of us a HUGE favor because we’d regain alot of the FACE TO FACE communication and experiences we were so used to prior to this social media revolution.
I will finish this post by reminding you that- it’s really not that serious.
It’s just Facebook.
Digital data.
That’s it.
should diaspora allow pulling tweets and facebook status updates, i could easily find use for it. just pushing messages to twitter and facebook is not enough at the moment. if i could combine different feeds (twitter, facebook, rss) much like tweetdeck, then that would be really useful.
Apart of any technical aspect (malcoded PHP, or anything else) and of ANY political, legal or ethical (FB owns your “private data” if you can call something YOU alone uploaded on the web “private” and still think that you do not sound ironic)..
D* is very difficult, not to say unlikely, to “beat” FaceBook, not even G+ is really that close to do such a thing.. And that is for some very simple reasons (as simple as the non technical crowd’s mind is) FaceBook has more features (apps, games, even an app store now), FB has a big and formatted user base (almost ALL my friends have an account, or even two, some people are very close to swap from mobile phones to FaceBook messages only!!!) and of course a third (or an extension of the second one), FaceBook is part of our everyday activity, more than any social media before (like MySpace, Hi5 or even MSN) and that is probably because FB had the luck to grow when the whole www and internet in general became such s dominating part of our lives.. Beat that newcomer, beat the custom, the habit.. difficult