There has been a lot of buzz about DIASPORA when it launched mid-September last year.
The open source initiative aims to become a distributed Facebook competitor, or, in their own words, “the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network”.
Wow, what a bold mission statement!
I was lucky enough to get one of the early invites and naturally – I love the Open Web! – I signed up immediately and got… disappointed, like so many others. Point is: There was nobody else on DIASPORA.
So today, roughly three months after signing up, I took another look.
And boy I got surprised: A very special, very well-known friend had connected with me, Mr. Leo Laporte!
Likely, there’s hardly anybody in the tech universe, who doesn’t know about Leo and his TWiT Netcast universe.
I asked myself: Could this be the real Leo? – I mean, the real, real Leo Laporte? As a long standing listener of This WEEK in TECH, I knew Leo is keeping transcripts of his shows on the TWiT Wiki. I wanted to find out.
Turns out, not only is this the real Leo. Actually, the great act of the two of us becoming close friends is even documented! On video! Set in stone! Forever!
Check out This WEEK in TECH Episode #276 below. Just hit the play button and you will become an eyewitness. If you happen to watch on YouTube, you need to manually tune in to 1:44:38.
Here we go:
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybAcCLByjbc
Unfortunately, Leo hasn’t said much on DIASPORA besides the “Derp” from this very episode. Me neither. It’s a sad story.
But I’m not exactly the depressed type of person and I want to bring back the spark to Leo’s and my relationship. My hope is, that once this post is out, he’ll remember. His DIASPORA user name and password (I had to look up mine today) and… of course me!
Leo, if you’re out there, please get in touch!
I’d love to join one of the next TWiT episodes, skyping in all the way from Germany, to celebrate our friendship in person! And if Jeff should be around, I’d be more than happy to provide a native German perspective on “privacy in Blurmany”. :-)
Just gimme a sign. On DIASPORA, if you prefer.
On a more serious note: Things on DIASPORA got pretty quiet shortly after launch in general. The DIASPORA blog has no posts between November 2010 and end of January 2011. There’s hardly been any exciting media coverage, either.
Would it be fair to state: DIASPORA is dead?
