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What does a diaspora page look like?

It looks like whatever the owner of the pod you are on wants it to look like. Pages on the diasp.org pod look very similar to Facebook. Other pods might appear differently. I would expect that eventually the pod code will support themes so that the pod owner can have his site appear however he wants. The point is that you aren't stuck with a single social media overlord. Don't like the terms of service or the terms have changed for the pod you are on? Move your profile to a different pod. Worst case scenario is that you stand up your own pod. The hope though is that there will be enough pods that you won't need to do that, but you will have the option if you wish. Right now I'm wondering if you could build out and stand up a small pod for a few users on an EC2 instance and still stay in the "free" category. If so, then once an image has been built it would be nothing to stand up your own pod and tweak it to however you wanted.

So what's the difference between https://diasp.org/ and https://joindiaspora.com? I made a login at the latter site and it doesn't work with the former. Is it now a fractured community?

No, it uses different "pods", or diaspora servers. These pods communicate with each other, hence the "decentralized social networking" description. You set up an account with one pod, but you can communicate with people on other pods. You can search for a person faster if you know what pod they're on. I have an account on diasp, so my address is [username].diasp.org, which could help you find me if you're on another pod. As far as I know, all pods achieved federation some time ago, so this shouldn't be a problem.

So what's the difference between https://diasp.org/ and https://joindiaspora.com? I made a login at the latter site and it doesn't work with the former. Is it now a fractured community?

This is a completely sensationalist and somewhat deceptive post.

First of all, those security bugs existed in the first release, before Diaspora even went open-source. Discussing Diaspora's first bugs without mentioning its current project status is like complaining about the first release of Linux when Linux 3.6 just came out. The author is deliberately leaving out information about the current status of the project in a way that is intended to further a deceptive conclusion in the reader's mind.

Second of all, check out http://diasp.org/ because it seriously works.

Third, Diaspora is still being developed by its community.

Fourth, Diaspora had the equivalent of the "circles" feature before Google+ did. In fact, the first release of Google+ looked so similar to Diaspora that people started to talk. And acting like Google+ somehow made Diaspora irrelevant is totally stupid. Apples and Oranges. Big Data and decentralized social networking. They have different purposes and therefore can't be directly compared.

Quit with the sensationalist tech journalism. I don't even use social networking much any more, but considering the friends I know who swear by Diaspora, I know its far from the idea of "a few young kids" creating a failure, which is what this stupid article champions.

Here is a community supported pod that works very well: https://diasp.org/

You don't need to use the official Diaspora server. For example, I use this one.

I was waiting forever as well, until I finally noticed a few months ago that there's a list of open servers on their site... Two I know of (offhand) are Diasp.org and Poddery -- since all Diaspora servers are linked, it doesn't matter which particular one a person is on.

Join the Diaspora

Here's a good place to get started.

Open source, distributed social networking. Evil not included.