I’ve contacted the Diaspora guys twice, trying to engaging them in a dialogue regarding the desirability of semantifying their platform. I sent them links to my A Flock of Twitters article, to SMOB, and to various Semantic Web resources like the W3C pages on WebID. They have not responded.

That is not too surprising as they are obviously quite busy. However, based on their few blog posts about the initial platform, it appears that they do not (yet?) grok the concept and beneficial power of the Web of Data. It is too bad as with the attention they’ve received (both financial and promotional), Diaspora really could have been a big, positive leap forward in distributed Social Web platforms.

Perhaps they will add a semantic layer in future versions. Until then, I am working on other options.

Do you know if diaspora will have any semantic aspects to it? Is it incorporating aspects of SMOB?

Thanks.

I do think the inertia behind both BuddyPress and Diaspora ($165,275 as of this writing!) brings to light just how much some people will work/pay for privacy.

I also think there are a lot of tech-geeks (not mentioning names) who want distributed social networking, but are now doing it through large enterprises that are, essentially, silos trying to unsilo themselves. Working backwards can sometimes be so much harder than working forwards.

Diaspora definitely set me thinking about how to do it right. I think they may be on to something.