Diaspora, a KickStarter Darling

For over a year now I have been bemoaning Facebook's assault on its users' privacy, and thankfully, the din is growing. But from the beginning of Facebook trampling on its users, I've wondered if someone was going to come quickly with their offering of a site that has many of the advantages of Facebook without the tricks. Aah! that may soon be upon us! Yep, you may still be able to easily share with your friends and family without having to hide from the continual stripping Facebook gives you.

The lovely site KickStarter has been helping to promote the innovative among us who don't make the circuit with VC guys. It's a sort of collective angel investor in cyber world to which you have to be invited, and recently they invited a group launching what hopefully will be a comfortable alternative to Facebook. Oh, you're done with that? Think again. Social media, and especially sites such as Facebook, are eclipsing the phone and the post office, so I'm not so sure it's that easy to give up. There was a time when I thought I could walk away from Facebook. But my angst about it bordering on downright hatred during the last year has not been enough to make me leave it. The richness and ease of staying in touch with family is hard to give it up. But now there may be a better way.

Diaspora is a project being launched by four students at NYU. It's a sort of twist on the Cloud. I'm not quite sure how it works yet, but my curiosity is killing me. Need to go read on it some more, but in the meantime, I'll let the young men tackling this idea speak for themselves:



Thoughts about the video:

It might be a little scary to think of having your own "node," but maybe it's time you got in the 21st century and learned how to control your cyber information, or someone else will control it. Frankly, this idea will probably be old hat in a few years, so why not get on board now? If you're interested in being part of the test program for Disapora, you can get on their mailing list, and they may send you an invite. Invites start today.

If it's Cool, You Win?

The video below is of a young man who will explain in three to four minutes how social media really works on the web. So why do you care? Well, he's explaining the shift in the nexus of ideas. The nexus or core is no longer rooted as much in places like the university classroom but moving towards the web with its quick transmission of memes (pieces of cultural information or thoughts). The often fast and furious transmission brings a kind of high that is not necessarily bad because it can be inspirational. That many ideas floating around bouncing into each other is bound to encourage something significant.

But there is a shallowness to it. The medium may have changed and now facilitates some ideas that possibly never would have occurred in our lifetimes. But the impetus of people hasn't changed one whit. They are not necessarily driven by what's best but sometimes by what's cool. For me the real question is whether or not the volume of their exchange inspires more depth. I have thoughts on that as well, but I'll save it for another post.

Hope you take a look at the video.



In case the intro blipped by too fast or you didn't see the ending, "TedTalks" which he refers to is a series of videos designed to spread great ideas. These are fascinating, and I highly recommend taking a look at them if you're interested in what you and others, and probably especially your kids, are going to be seeing and hearing and influenced by.

As for reddit, it's also fascinating, and "fast and furious" is sometimes not sufficient to describe what goes on there. At times I think of it like the trading pit at the NYSE.