Diaspora, the 'anti-Facebook', is doomed

Diaspora is a new social network that will go into public alpha in October, with an open-source developer release coming in a few weeks. Its founders, four New York University students, describe the network as "privacy-aware" and "personally-controlled", and the network has been lauded as an alternative to Facebook that will treat your privacy with more respect and give you greater control over your information.

But come on. I know we're all cheesed off at Facebook for changing its privacy settings what seems like every couple of weeks, and perhaps we're disturbed too at some of its CEO's remarks about the future of our personal information. But do we really need an entirely new social network that exists solely to register our disapproval at Mark Zuckerberg? I don't think so.

Don't get me wrong, the idea of an open-source, decentralised social network is compelling. But it's come too late in the evolution of social networking, and, to be frank, the idea of hosting your own social network only appeals to geeks like me. Let's be clear: there is no space for another network between Facebook and LinkedIn, as the founders seem to think. There are already too many networks and services fighting for our attention. (Am I really going to log in to yet another social network to upload the photos I don't want to share on Facebook?) And this fancy new architecture simply doesn't matter to most people.

Facebook launched in February 2004, and rapidly became the world's most popular social network. It's the second most-visited site on the internet, it's been funded to the tune of $836million and it has crushed every other social network out there. Its current user base is upwards of 500 million people. Since the network is yet to launch, Diaspora's user base is… well, four, if you count the founders. The phrase "uphill struggle" doesn't scratch the surface.

And then there's the original driving force behind Diaspora: privacy. The thing is, despite huge objections from its own users, and several high-profile campaigns to encourage users to quit, Facebook continues to grow. Rapidly. It doesn't matter how much of our information Facebook makes public, we can't seem to prise ourselves away. So what makes these four students think they know better?

I guess we'll have to wait and see, but a strong clue that Diaspora is going nowhere comes from Zuckerberg himself: he's invested in it. Is he enjoying a joke at the founders' expense? How credible an alternative to Facebook is a network part-funded by Facebook's own CEO?

Diaspora is a hugely ambitious project and I can't help but think it's doomed to failure. Surely the best the founders can hope for is to raise awareness about Facebook's fast and loose approach to privacy - which they've already done - and back off with some dignity intact?