Heap Overrun

Just a quick update to bring some light to the upcoming Diaspora* project. Diaspora* (from the Greek διασπορά, meaning "a scattering [of seeds]") intends to be a new social networking platform standing in direct competition to Facebook. The first question that must be asked is, how will they compare? The answer is refreshingly quite simple — they're going to be about as different as you can get. Where Facebook is closed, Diaspora* intends to be open.

Facebook requires that everything go through them. All your updates, friends, photos, etc. are on Facebook with no way to link them together. With Diaspora*, the intention is to do the opposite. The developers behind Diaspora* speak of a plugin-based system, so each individual component of your experience can be on your own Diaspora* instance (more on that later), on Facebook, on Picasa, on Twitter, or even any other service. If there isn't a plugin for the system you want, go ask for one. Or if you're technically-inclined, write it yourself. Mind you, Facebook may not take too kindly to this idea, but the possibility is there.

If that wasn't enough, Diaspora* doesn't require that you choose between dropping other services, updating multiple services separately or using a third-party client to do the updating for you. In fact, Diaspora* will be able to take advantage of its plugin-based architecture to do the updating for you. Or you can keep going with third-party clients. Such are the wonders of an open plugin-based architecture.

I mentioned earlier your own Diaspora* instance. For you technical folks, it's probably exactly what you're thinking. For the rest of us, what that means is you can grab your own copy of Diaspora*, rent or buy a server, and have your own Diaspora* site. Yours, not someone else's, under your control. Suddenly, the social graph becomes truly social, based on us. Mark another instance as a friend and you can synchronize securely.

Of course, with the long-running privacy violations Facebook has thrust upon us, it would be more than a little questionable to end a post like this without outlining how Diaspora* guarantees our privacy. After all, what's to stop the developers from pulling a Zuckerberg and selling our data to marketers? Well, lots actually. Your information is on your Diaspora* instance, not (necessarily) theirs. They can't access your instance. They can't sell what they can't see. Even if the proverbial dung does hit the fan and they start selling data, the software itself is being released as free software so anyone can always get a copy and take things in a new direction. As long as there's a developer somewhere (not necessarily one of the original four currently building Diaspora*) who cares, we'll be all set.

So in short, what is Diaspora* going to be? Only time will really tell, but here's my predictions:

• What Facebook could have been, had Zuckerberg chosen to listen to what users wanted instead of his pocketbook,
• Both securely social and socially secure,
• Private,
• Useful,
• Personal.