Diaspora: The Other Facebook? (Ron Chichester)

Many of us have had a love/hate relationship with Facebook. Admit it, you like the ability to reconnect with old high school chums, but absolutely hate the way the company is leaking many private tidbits.

Well, take heart friends. A group of geeks in New York announced the start of an open source replacement for Facebook. The project is called “Diaspora*”.

Think of it as a true open social network, but without one company holding all the data. Instead, you put your seed out on the Internet where others can find it. They see what you want them to see — and nothing else. The transactions can be encrypted (using PGP), so prying eyes can’t see in/track/mine/sell the data.

Another feature will be the ability to scrape the data from your existing social network account (“reclaim your data” or at least avoid a lot of typing). The application could put people back in the driver’s seat, assuming there are enough defections from Facebook. Look for the beta this September.

The code for Diaspora* will be released under the open source GPL (GNU Public License), so you’ll be able to write your own extensions to the application.

You can find their website at: joindiaspora.com

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