If I told you that a yet to be built social network, with no Venture funding, has raised over $100,000 from “the internet”, would you believe me?
What if I told you that their goal was to raise $10,000 in individual donations, a number that was surpassed in just 12 days. As I write this post, they’ve raised $123,000 or 1230% of their target (it’s undoubtedly higher than that now).
Did I mention that the service doesn’t even exist yet? Get Out, I know!
What gives?
The internets are up in a huff (hell they have to be to part with $123,000 of their hard earned money). In many people’s view, Facebook, the worlds biggest social network, has taken too many liberties covertly changing privacy settings, holding our data hostage and generally making life on the network less fun for users and less profitable for businesses.
People are looking for another option to the omniscient Face_Over_Lord, and group of just graduated NYU students think they have the answer.
Say hello to Diaspora
Diaspora; an open source personal web server that will put individuals in control of their data.
From the Diaspora Blog
We believe that privacy and connectedness do not have to be mutually exclusive. With Diaspora, we are reclaiming our data, securing our social connections, and making it easy to share on your own terms. We think we can replace today’s centralized social web with a more secure and convenient decentralized network. Diaspora will be easy to use, and it will be centered on you instead of a faceless hub.
Click Here to View the Diaspora Project Video
Give it a Try
Oh wait, we can’t. That’s because it’s not built yet, a fact that makes this whole project 1 million times cooler. If these four dudes manage to pull off everything they say they will, this will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the coolest business founding’s the Social Web has ever seen.
So until you and I can connect on our “Privacy Aware distributed Social Network” you should click through to see the Diaspora Project Page or follow the team on Twitter. I guarantee that you’ll be hearing more about this project.
The Diaspora team is obviously tickled pink with all of our attention, just check out this quote from their blog,
Thanks to all for being so awesome, we can’t wait till our finals are over so we can get crackin’ on Diaspora!
Freaking awesome.
PS. Here’s another group that is doing something similar. Apprently they’re further ahead (and possibly jealous of the huge popularity Diaspora has achieved already) Check them out too! Visit One Social Web for more.