Diaspora, a new open-source social network, is addressing these issues. Conceived in the summer of 2010 and developed by a group of four New York University students — Daniel Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, and Raphael Sofaer — it’s self-deemed as “Diaspora: the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network.” It is designed to give the control of personal information to the individual users without the subjection of third-party sell out or privacy policy adjustment. Disapora allows people to do similar activities as Facebook — uploading photos and videos, posting comments, searching for friends.

Screenshot of the main page

In early 2010, the group of four entrepreneurs publicly requested financial support via the online fundraising platform Kickstarter with an initial goal of raising $10,000 by early June in order to start programming. In less than 2 weeks of posting the request, they raised over $100,000. By mid-May, they had 4,800 backers and a total pledge of $175,000, with figures continually growing. The group worked throughout the summer on developing the alpha version.

In mid-September, the group released the source code for developers and more recently began giving out invites for alpha-version use.

It’s still a bit early to really determine whether or not Diaspora will gain enough users to make it a true Facebook rival and rise as a top social networking website. It has exhibited tremendous support, as many people — much to the chagrin of Zuckerberg — actually value their privacy. Of course, though, the uproar about Facebook’s lack of regard for personal privacy could easily blow over; people may not be happy but people may also not care enough or be too lazy enough to switch over. This is perhaps Diaspora’s biggest challenge and will truly impact whether or not the new network will garner a large enough population for its membership.

However, as the web continues to rapidly evolve and privacy concerns continue to be a major issue for online users, and if Diaspora continues to maintain its pledge to protect the personal information that people value, then it just might have a fighting chance against the behemoth Facebook.

Below is a walk-through in pictures fromhttp://zdnet.com:

The first page you’ll see in setting up — very basic, just inputting information.

You can create “aspects” (or categories) and add your friends and acquaintances to them.

Start the conversation — equivalent to your wall (status updates, uploads, comments, etc.)

Photo upload — I agree with the comment that Diaspora is aesthetically pleasing.

This is what your home page may look like — posts from friends and information sharing.

(More pictures can be seen on Lifehacker.com as well.)

This past month or so has been a big month for platform launches (MakeSense, Jumo, CauseVox, etc) and trying to peruse them all has left me limited time in exploring Diaspora. But so far, it seems pretty navigable, with a clean and easy-to-use feel. There are small dissatisfactions here and there but that’s to be expected of any alpha version. It’ll be interesting to see what lies ahead for this new venture.

You can follow development progress and news updates on http://www.joindiaspora.com.

PS – If anyone would like an invite, just hit me up.

Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, has recently committed to donating $1 million to public schools through the online charity DonorsChoose.org.  Bing gives users two options.  They can simply click to donate $1 to any school Bing chooses.  However, if users set their homepage to Bing, they get a voucher they can use to donate $5 to the school of their choosing through DonorsChoose.org.

Wal-Mart’s crowdsourced giving strategy is somewhat different.  The company plans to donate $1.5 million to the communities who receive the highest number of votes (in the form of “Likes” on Facebook) on the Wal-Mart Fighting Hunger Together website.  The community that receives the most votes will get $1 million while the next five runners up will each receive $100,000.

Both campaigns certainly raise brand visibility but give consumers different types of influence over giving.  When someone sets Bing as his or her home page, he or she chooses a specific school to donate to and knows that school is going to get $5.  When someone votes for his or her community on Wal-Mart’s site, there is a high likelihood the community will get no money.  However, the $1 million one community gets from Wal-Mart has the potential to do more good that $5 will do for one school.

So which is better?  You decide!

When Angus Kidman first wrote his piece What the iPad will mean for the homeless, he was skeptical — as many would be. Where would the homeless charge up their iPads? Where would one get wireless? 3G would be difficult to sign up for without a permanent address.Of what use would the iPad really serve, anyways? Kidman seems to think that the iPad is just a luxury item that the wealthy will purchase because they can, but the necessity of it seems small, used only when a PC or phone are not available.

He acknowledged that technology can and has helped the homeless, referencing some organizations that donate old phones to the homeless. If given something higher end like an iPad, it may get swapped for some extra cash, Kidman believes. He concluded by stating that the homeless don’t need or can’t use more than a Nokia (which is not to be hated on; it’s the most popular phone in the world!)

Well, a couple of homeless folks have already proved him wrong. Evidently, there are some without homes who managed to get their hands on not only an iPad but also some kind of laptop or notebook. Taking a look into the lives of two homeless men in Paris, the article explores the logistics behind having an iPad but no address, and the sustainability of owning such an item. In major cities such as Paris and New York, finding Wi-Fi is not difficult. In all my years of being in New York City, I have never had trouble finding a hot spot; and when I sit in the Starbucks on the north end of Union Square, I can see that there are plenty of homeless people who also have no trouble finding some wireless hub either.

The homeless man in the article reveals he swapped an old MP3 player for a solar charger he found on Craigslist. The iPad and laptop not only keep him occupied during the day, but it allows him to keep in touch with people — never having to pay a cent for phone calls what with technologies such as Skype and Google Voice — and gives him some extra cash.

“The laptop and iPad also come in handy for other things… I often will DJ at parties off the iPad, and tend to use the laptop for working on my book from a park, or for making Skype calls; with Skype, Google Voice, and a few websites and iPad apps, I haven’t paid for international calls or texts in about six months. Google Ads brings in some money, and web work, freelance writing, and such all make enough that I’m never hungry. Without the laptop, this would not be possible.”

Of course, not every homeless person is or can be like this. But the article gives an interesting look into living a minimalist life with some luxury items.

Another interesting take is the blog of the iPad Nomad, who isn’t technically homeless but travels with his iPad, somewhat exhibiting the same concept as the tale of the Parisian homeless Apple patron.

Technology is advanced. It’s expensive and fancy and complicated at times. But I’ve seen my share of homeless youths with iPhones and Starbucks- or McDonalds-residing men with Netbooks. It’s interesting to see how technology is such a necessity to people that one would choose to own it over other items, such as a bed or a home. Can it be a sustainable tool for many? Could it bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots? Imagine Tweeting with Fred who sits on Broadway and 14th St. Or Google chatting with Stephanie in Tompkins Square. Of course, as already mentioned, this is not the majority of homeless people in our city — many are “absolutes,” not having anywhere to go at all and not having even one penny, so perhaps this is all just moot; one exceptional story of a few tech-savvy homeless guys. We’ll see.

“I have met a lot of people when they ask me how I like my iPad… It’s funny to see them react when I say I live off of it. But when people see a gadget, they’re more likely to take you as a person rather than a drug-driven grifter out for hand-outs. Odd piece of psychology I guess.”

Yesterday at the BlackBerry Developer Conference, RIM revealed its new tablet device: the BlackBerry PlayBook (thankfully not named the rumored BlackPad!).

Being released to developers in the coming weeks, this may be what keeps BlackBerry in the game, not that it was facing any threats of falling off the radar. But it does seem to carry quite the number of nifty perks, giving the iPad and other tablet products some competition.

Physically, it’s great. The tablet is less than a pound and is 0.4 inches thick, with a 7-inch display that boasts a resolution of 1024 x 600.

The main perks they are marketing are that it has high-performance multimedia, is truly multitasking, is enterprise ready, allows face to face conversations, is secure and incredibly speedy.

It has a multitouch display that allows for multi-finger gestures. It also is complete with a two cameras: a 5MP camera in the back and a 3MP lens in the front, both of which can record HD videos. It also supports Flash and HTML5, claiming it to be “Internet the way it’s meant to be” and a “web without limits.”

The PlayBook will also offer BlackBerry integration, giving users the ability to sync their BlackBerry smartphone with the tablet through a secure Bluetooth connection. This means that one could opt to view on the tablet any content that resides or is accessible on their BlackBerry smartphone such as email, BBM, calendars, documents, etc. Additionally, the PlayBook will arrive with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support including 3G and 4G versions to come later on.

You can read more about the PlayBook’s specs and details on their press release.

RIM says the tablet is to arrive in the U.S. in early 2011 and in overseas markets in the second quarter of next year. Unfortunately, there seems to be no pricing just yet.

Check out their promo video too — effective!

Since the very first launch of the very first Iphone, I have been interested in acquiring one for myself. Like millions around the world, I was seduced by the user-friendly way of doing things on that device. As a rational homo-oeconomicus, I inquired about all the different ways to smartly purchase this and doing so, I had to stop by Apple stores all over the place (the one is Paris when I was living there, then more recently to some in New York City) to ask questions.

Each time I went there to ask about the product, the friendly apple salespersons always gave me the same answers: “Well, this new Iphone is great, I have one myself, but I think you should wait for the next one which will be launched very soon. You dont want your product to be sort of backward three months after you bought it, right??”

So convincing…Those threats worked wonders and I didn’t go for the very first Iphone. Neither did I buy the 3G, or the 3Gs. I kept my archeological Nokia and was sure I was doing the right thing.

But when the fourth version of that revolutionary thing was launched, I deliberately decided to go for it! The reason was that I came to the
conclusion that I could wait all my life for the next generation of Iphones.

That made me think of Apple’s strategy. They make you “ideolize” in January what they will have you “despise” in December…Unlike ancient alchemy, Apple’s strategy focuses on the attempt (always successful) to change Gold (each Iphone is great in its essence, and the fact that the new generation is better doesn’t really alter the greatness of the previous one) into base metals, and that process allows the launch of new products. Always giving Gold a new look!

We’ve talked about the book.

This video is from a talk Clay Shirky gave at the Harvard Law School on Feb. 28, 2008 and hosted by the Berkman Center.