Open-source Diaspora set launch date

Diaspora, an open-source social network describes itself as “privacy-aware, personally-controlled”, will be launched on 15 September, according to the developers.

Diaspora, an open-source social network describes itself as “privacy-aware, personally-controlled”, will be launched on 15 September, according to the developers.
The project is considered as an alternative to Facebook, but many believe that it is difficult to challenge the world’s largest social network, which has 500 million users and is estimated to be worth $33bn currently.
A team of four US students built up Diaspora trying to solve some of the problems appeared in Facebook, when it was criticised for being overly complex and confusing, as well as privacy concerns. “We want to put users back in control of what they share,” Max Salzberg, one of the founders said.
Diaspora made headlines earlier this year when Facebook was in intense criticism.  When speaking of the differences between Diaspora, as compared to Facebook, the developers said Diaspora has an intuitive way for users to decide, and not notice deciding, what content goes to their co-workers and what goes to their drinking buddies. “We know that’s a hard [user interface] problem and we take it seriously.” They claimed that they had spent the summer in “building clear, contextual sharing”.

On 15 September, Diaspora will be open-source which allows anyone to read and modify the project’s underlying code.
The team, consists of three computer science students and one mathematics students, started the project with $200,000 (USD) raised from around 6,500 donators through the fundraising website, Kickstarter. Reportedly, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg is one of the donators.  They initially targeted to raise $100,000 only to support the network build-up.