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> Suppose in the (not too distant) future, next to no one ops to buy entire CDs vs. a single track. Won't all artists then be one or two hit wonders?

It depends on how talented the artist is and how devoted the artist's fans are. There are people who will only buy singles that they hear and like, but many people prefer to buy albums (especially if they've heard several songs they like one one album). A few will fall in love with the music and buy absolutely everything the artist produces.

Look at Lady Gaga's sales for The Fame Monster. 5.8 million albums in 2010. The songs were available as an MP3 single for $0.99 the same time the album became available at the end of 2009. Half the songs were on The Fame which released in 2008. People still bought millions of copies of the album.

For a (much) smaller artist, look at The Dollyrots. It's probable that you've never heard of them, though they've gotten enough exposure that it's not impossible. They are definitely not a superstar band.

They did a kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a new album. Of the 540 people that pledged money up front, only 39 pledged the minimum required to get a download of the album or less and 110 more pledged the minimum to get a physical CD. 291 (over 50%) of the people pledged more than the minimum necessary to get the album in the form they wanted it in.

The rewards varied, but as you get up into the hundreds of dollars, you can be certain that you're looking at the hardcore fans who will buy anything this group produces. 15 people pledged $300 each to get the band to write songs for them (which, since there are so many, are going to be made into a 2nd album that everyone who pledged gets a copy of). Two people pledged $1000 each to spend a day in the studio with the band where they get to watch, sing gang vocals and join in on hand claps. One idiot pledged $500 to get the album and a bunny suit (disclaimer: yes, I'm the idiot). These are fans who will not only buy anything the band produces, but will act as patrons to help fund the band's production of new material.

So... yes, there may be fewer people who buy albums, but there will always be people who buy albums even if individual songs are available. There will also always be fans who will buy everything produced by their favorite artists and dedicated fans with money who will help their favorite bands far more than a CD sale ever could.

The flip side of this is the artist's viewpoint and the realities of how music is produced. It's more cheaper and faster to have a dozen songs you want to record when you go in the studio than to do a dozen sessions for one song each. If you record it all in one go, for example, you only set up all the equipment once, as opposed to setting it up a dozen times. You're also in the groove as you move from one song to the next. You don't have to spend a lot of time warming up and getting ready to record. The same thing applies to what the sound engineers engineers do as well. They need setup time and time with the band to discuss what the band wants. Mastering a dozen songs in one session is far faster than a dozen sessions with one song mastered in each and sound engineers charge by the hour.

tl;dr - Albums will continue to exist because there are plenty of fans who will buy albums and it's cheaper to record music an album at a time. And you should totally buy Dollyrots albums or might find a guy in a bunny suit peeing on your lawn.

You may wish to finish reading the linked article, they're still working on the funding. But if they get it, there will be tickets. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/648673855/the-lightning-foundry

What the Anonymous Coward described sounds like Kickstarter's business model to me, which appears to be working reasonably well for a lot of rather unknown artists (but NB, how you present your work can make or break your call for funding!).

To answer your question, you'll probably want to give your potential readers a glimpse of what you are trying to sell them before they buy, for instance by releasing the first few chapters of your book so they can evaluate your writing ability and get a taste of the storyline/characters (which is more than they'd normally get, as in the traditional model they'd pay up front only to find out later if what they bought was just abysmal, over-marketed drivel). Of course, if it doesn't work out at first, you'll just need to persist! Don't lose heart and throw your book out; if your book is good, you'll get there eventually.

Also, I highly recommend Joe Konrath's blog, who is a very intelligent and successful self-published writer using such business models.

FWIW this might just solve that problem

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elegantinvention/isostick-the-optical-drive-in-a-usb-stick

There has been a lot of misconception about the functionality of isostick. All the optical disk magic takes place in the isostick itself, it doesn't matter if you're in the computer's BIOS, an OS, anything -- whatever you plug it into will see both an optical drive and a flash drive. Absolutely no software is required for this. The software mentioned is a convenience for configuring it, but all settings are ultimately stored in config files on the flash portion, which you can edit however you please. I hope this clears up some confusion about the isostick, and I hope you like it!

Some BIOSes only see the first drive a device presents, so isostick's optical drive comes first so you don't have to worry about not being able to boot from it!

Kickstarter looked like a good idea. But then there was this project that seemed grand, "Musopen": record classical music for the public domain. There was an article here on Slashdot about it. They raised $68,359 - way over the original $11,000 goal, over a year ago.

And nothing has been recorded yet.

Kickstarter projects lack accountability.

kickstarter

Fingernails raking against a chalkboard and chalk squeaking against slate were the most unpleasant sounds from a family of recordings, which also included sounds such as Styrofoam squeaks and scraping a plate with a fork.

Oh scraping a plate with a fork.. *shudder*

Also unpleasant: rub the smooth ends of two drills together.

But I have to give kudos to Shad Clark for a sound that is not necessarily cringe-worthy on its own - but by virtue of its associated visual, makes the hairs on my arms stand on end just thinking about it.
I won't describe it, just let the video in the following URL load...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadclark/all-i-think-of-is-you ...then skip to 1:33 and hit play :(

...Some time ago there was a post about a guy who created a wrist strap and holder for his iPod Nano. This seems a lot like it, anyone know if there's a connection?

Found the URL: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1104350651/tiktok-lunatik-multi-touch-watch-kits

From the amount of money pledged I think it can be assumed that he found some fairly major backing

I'm pretty sure KickStarter really kickstarted with indie movies, music, etc. In fact, they are still the main projects on KickStarter (and similar sites, like indiegogo).

What's really 'kickstarting' KickStarter a second time, at least when it comes to tech, is the iDevice.

There's two areas for technology, the Tech section:
www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/technology/popular

And the Design section, which is vastly more tech than design:
www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/design/popular

1 in 5 of the projects in either section section are iDevice-oriented - this includes, for example, the 'Sacred Grounds' smartphone app, by which they really mean iOS app and "they hope" to make an Android version as well.

For the Design section this of course makes sense.. the iPhone and iPad give a narrow target with lots of users so you're far more likely to gain success with e.g. a stand or enclosure there than you could when designing for any single random Android, BB, WP7 or whatever device.

But also keep in mind it includes such gems as this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mcnab-lazar/cablegone-cable-managing-solution?ref=category

Now I'm all for cable management solutions, even if there's dozens available in the world that doesn't mean we can't have one more. But the additional quality of this cable management is that it can double as a stand for an iPad, the project summary (as seen in widgets etc.) notes:

Cable.Gone hides the usual clutter and instantly turns your desk into a stylish working space. It can be also used as an iPad stand.

Yes.. then again, it could be used as any tablet stand. It could be used as a laptop stand. Similarly, a two-by-four could also be used as an iPad stand.

So why point out the iPad? Marketing, of course. And not just to end-users, but to KickStarter as well. I've more than once joked to people who are doing innovative tech that if they want to get listed on KickStarter, they should mention an iDevice in some way to increase their odds.
With 1 in 5 projects being iDevice-exclusive or iDevice-targeting in those two sections, I'm not sure I should be treating it as just a joke anymore.

A bit more on-topic.. 'open hardware' is indeed a large portion of the other 4 in 5 projects in those sections - sometimes from the get-go, sometimes after deliberations and popular demand (such as with the HexBright Flex flashlight). 'open software' however lags behind quite a bit with most projects going nowhere fast. In part that's because those projects tend to be vague, and in part it's because there's often no visible ROI. With an indie movie, you get some exclusive images, a downloadable copy, perhaps even the DVD. With hardware you might get a kit to build it yourself, or a pre-assembled thing, or maybe you just get to see that a website that ends up selling the completed products was indeed launched and you get a sticker (hey, whatever you pledge for - it's not a bazaar after all, it's more like an investment round.. rewards are just for enticement). But with software, especially open source software.. what people, or the market, get is often unclear.
E.g. TweetFree: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1100820943/tweetfree-secure-distributed-social-networking-pla?ref=category

Your generous donation will be used to fund continued development of TweetFree, to purchase support contracts for open source software we use and need support on, and to purchase hardware (computers) to run new relay and network servers from.

So in essence, any funding goes into a black box never to be seen, or accounted for, again, if the blurbs are the only thing to go by. And this for a service that vaguely de

I'm pretty sure KickStarter really kickstarted with indie movies, music, etc. In fact, they are still the main projects on KickStarter (and similar sites, like indiegogo).

What's really 'kickstarting' KickStarter a second time, at least when it comes to tech, is the iDevice.

There's two areas for technology, the Tech section:
www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/technology/popular

And the Design section, which is vastly more tech than design:
www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/design/popular

1 in 5 of the projects in either section section are iDevice-oriented - this includes, for example, the 'Sacred Grounds' smartphone app, by which they really mean iOS app and "they hope" to make an Android version as well.

For the Design section this of course makes sense.. the iPhone and iPad give a narrow target with lots of users so you're far more likely to gain success with e.g. a stand or enclosure there than you could when designing for any single random Android, BB, WP7 or whatever device.

But also keep in mind it includes such gems as this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mcnab-lazar/cablegone-cable-managing-solution?ref=category

Now I'm all for cable management solutions, even if there's dozens available in the world that doesn't mean we can't have one more. But the additional quality of this cable management is that it can double as a stand for an iPad, the project summary (as seen in widgets etc.) notes:

Cable.Gone hides the usual clutter and instantly turns your desk into a stylish working space. It can be also used as an iPad stand.

Yes.. then again, it could be used as any tablet stand. It could be used as a laptop stand. Similarly, a two-by-four could also be used as an iPad stand.

So why point out the iPad? Marketing, of course. And not just to end-users, but to KickStarter as well. I've more than once joked to people who are doing innovative tech that if they want to get listed on KickStarter, they should mention an iDevice in some way to increase their odds.
With 1 in 5 projects being iDevice-exclusive or iDevice-targeting in those two sections, I'm not sure I should be treating it as just a joke anymore.

A bit more on-topic.. 'open hardware' is indeed a large portion of the other 4 in 5 projects in those sections - sometimes from the get-go, sometimes after deliberations and popular demand (such as with the HexBright Flex flashlight). 'open software' however lags behind quite a bit with most projects going nowhere fast. In part that's because those projects tend to be vague, and in part it's because there's often no visible ROI. With an indie movie, you get some exclusive images, a downloadable copy, perhaps even the DVD. With hardware you might get a kit to build it yourself, or a pre-assembled thing, or maybe you just get to see that a website that ends up selling the completed products was indeed launched and you get a sticker (hey, whatever you pledge for - it's not a bazaar after all, it's more like an investment round.. rewards are just for enticement). But with software, especially open source software.. what people, or the market, get is often unclear.
E.g. TweetFree: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1100820943/tweetfree-secure-distributed-social-networking-pla?ref=category

Your generous donation will be used to fund continued development of TweetFree, to purchase support contracts for open source software we use and need support on, and to purchase hardware (computers) to run new relay and network servers from.

So in essence, any funding goes into a black box never to be seen, or accounted for, again, if the blurbs are the only thing to go by. And this for a service that vaguely de

An alternative to getting money from just one patron would be to use the awesome power of the intertubes and receive patronage from many fans worldwide. See for example the <plug> Kickstarter project by Tobias Buckell(author of "Crystal Rain","Sly Mongoose" and more) for his newest novel. He offers various levels of "patronage" in correspondence with the money one can donate. This largely avoids the problem of a patron having undue inflience on a work of art (personally I wouldn't consider changing a characters name according to the wishes of a donor an undue influence).

The downside of this model is that it would be hard for new authors without an existing fanbase to employ.

Kickstarter funds plenty weird projects. Say, the statue of Robocop is a pretty strange thing, but it got funded. Steve Grand's Grandroids project got funded.

About that one: Steve Grand made an A-Life game, in 1996. Then he left the company. Creatures 2 and 3, and Docking Station went progressively downhill, until the company went bankrupt in 2003. The game itself is an artificial life simulator, somewhat akin to the Sims but rather less user friendly. It heavily appeals to technical people who like to mess with the virtual genetics and chemistry.

So, the thing Grand made is 15 years old at this point, and the latest game is 8 years old. Plus it's a very niche game that appeals to a particular kind of person. He still got $57K, about twice of what he asked for.

Kickstarter also funded multiple projects related to stuff like 3D printers, CNC machines, and laser cutters. Hardly popular for the masses kind of thing.

I recently threw a few bucks to an artist making a book of illustrations of japanese demons. That one got 9X what he asked for.

One doesn't need to do really popular stuff to get funded on Kickstarter. In fact the reason to get funded there is that your work is not mainstream enough, and the people who pay are interested in funding things that are hard to find because they don't have such a wide appeal.

Kickstarter funds plenty weird projects. Say, the statue of Robocop is a pretty strange thing, but it got funded. Steve Grand's Grandroids project got funded.

About that one: Steve Grand made an A-Life game, in 1996. Then he left the company. Creatures 2 and 3, and Docking Station went progressively downhill, until the company went bankrupt in 2003. The game itself is an artificial life simulator, somewhat akin to the Sims but rather less user friendly. It heavily appeals to technical people who like to mess with the virtual genetics and chemistry.

So, the thing Grand made is 15 years old at this point, and the latest game is 8 years old. Plus it's a very niche game that appeals to a particular kind of person. He still got $57K, about twice of what he asked for.

Kickstarter also funded multiple projects related to stuff like 3D printers, CNC machines, and laser cutters. Hardly popular for the masses kind of thing.

I recently threw a few bucks to an artist making a book of illustrations of japanese demons. That one got 9X what he asked for.

One doesn't need to do really popular stuff to get funded on Kickstarter. In fact the reason to get funded there is that your work is not mainstream enough, and the people who pay are interested in funding things that are hard to find because they don't have such a wide appeal.

Tiered pricing. Sell the digital copy for $ 0.99 a pop, paperbacks for $5, hardbacks for $20, signed editions for $50, etc. That way you can get the book out there to the masses for a reasonable price and allow your biggest fans to show their appreciation by buying something more permanent. Not coincidentally, this is also how Kickstarter works and what a lot of webcomic artists do.

http://www.kickstarter.com/ is the website you are looking for.

"There are no games which are not violent."

http://familypastimes.com/
"Family Pastimes games are the inventions of Jim Deacove. Jim started making co-operative games for his own family, and was encouraged by friends to make more. The Deacove family was and is no different from others. Sharing toys, helping mom and dad and being kind to others are values taught in all homes. To find games which help reinforce such sharing attitudes, however, is very difficult. Thus, Jim and Ruth felt the need to create some."

Also:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1713701812/co-opoly-the-game-of-cooperatives/posts/105473

And:
http://www.share-international.org/archives/cooperation/i_cooperation.htm
http://www.share-international.org/archives/cooperation/co_nocontest.htm
"Kohn argues that the 'sacred cow' of competition stands on four mythological legs."

But yes, alternatives to competitive games in the USA can be much harder to find.

My wife and I invested over six-person years trying to create non-violent video game alternatives in the 1990s when everyone was saying how important that was, and mostly all we got for that ourselves was having to spend many years working for others to pay off debt.
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/nsfprop.htm

Still, Minecraft is a new popular mostly cooperative game that I can recommend if you want one (although get your vitamin D from supplements if you spend a lot of time indoors playing it):
http://www.minecraft.net/

I would have been very proud to have made something that good and also that popular which created a huge cooperating user community. I have immense respect for Mojang AB in that sense.

There's a project on Kickstarter about this right now, using Rovio robots and an EMOTIV headset. It's always interesting to see some form of new technology being worked on in a few places simultaneously - usually means something is about to hit big. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robots/robodance-5-telepresence-robotics-for-all-esp-the

I'm fairly sure this counts as prior art

I just heard about kickstarter when i saw some poeple wanted to do a documentary about my old Trenton, Nj hangout. I was shocked they collected $38K in 5 weeks based on a 5-minute video. City Gardens film

http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines They don't allow you to use kickstarter for charity. It's only for creative projects.

No, it's just that people put up with Minecraft's graphics because there isn't any other game like that. There is a one interesting project called Lords of Uberdark coming (see the alpha video), but it still uses vortexes and doesn't look as pretty as current other games. But at least it's not just blocks anymore. But the truth is, when you get the same options and things you can do in Minecraft but with better graphics, people will move to it.

They sure do, but you have to present it right.

Kickstarter should boldly state that it only supports US citizens

Uh oh. Didn't know that.

Well, I looked in the FAQs and found this

"I'm not in the US. Can I fund my project on Kickstarter?

Currently a US bank account is required to start a project. This is a restriction by Amazon Payments, our payments processor. If you don't have a US bank account and are interested in starting a project, we appreciate your patience (we're working on it!)."

So they seem to be pretty up-front about it (now ; I can well imagine that they didn't mention this so bluntly in earlier iterations).

I also note that the specific restriction is not on US citizens per se, but on having a US bank account. Getting an account at a US bank as a foreigner might be a PITA, but it should be do-able. (It might be less hassle to have a US-based front man/ woman/ gerbil though.)

I wonder if there is a Kickstarter project for getting round this restriction? Would be appropriate.

I'd never heard of it until a couple of days ago, but today (before seeing this article on /.) I pledged some money to an Amiga documentary ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vivaamiga/viva-amiga-the-documentary-film ). With today being 17 years since Commodore went bust it seemed a good day to pre-order it.

"Ok, so this is a slashvertisement for a service that specializes in angel investments, but what was the impact? How many businesses were successfully funded? "

Well, let's look at the kickstarter project that has been on slashdot many many many times, Dispora. (8 times in 11 months! Is that a slashvertisement record?)

It received $200,000 in June 2010 and was suppose to be a summer project: "We promise to you that Diaspora will be aGPL software which will released at the end of the summer."

Here it is, 11 months later, and where is it? Diaspora is still not available, you still have to "sign up for an invite".

So forgive me if I'm not impressed by Kickstarter when their biggest project is a EPIC FAIL.

Slashdot, I don't know what Kickstarter is paying you for these ads but please stop

And for the hacker-conference-going nerds, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1742965716/openamd-open-source-location-tracking-and-social-n

And for the gaming nerds, DungeonMorph Dice (Dungeon Geomorphs): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1764845067/dungeonmorph-dice-dungeon-geomorphs

It's not just businesses and it has many Slashdot community projects.

This Kickstarter project -- http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/492851406/big-beautiful-public-art-by-parsons-class-in-union -- is by a techy art project by a guy first profiled in Slashdot for a related business -- http://slashdot.org/story/02/08/16/1833215/Animated-Ads-in-a-Subway-Near-You -- about ten years ago.

There's also Diaspora, inspired by Eben Moglen, which was hugely successful, generating press in the NY Times and more -- http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr

It's not just businesses and it has many Slashdot community projects.

This Kickstarter project -- http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/492851406/big-beautiful-public-art-by-parsons-class-in-union -- is by a techy art project by a guy first profiled in Slashdot for a related business -- http://slashdot.org/story/02/08/16/1833215/Animated-Ads-in-a-Subway-Near-You -- about ten years ago.

There's also Diaspora, inspired by Eben Moglen, which was hugely successful, generating press in the NY Times and more -- http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr

Found their Kickstarter page (long since closed). Was way off, they got $68,000.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1803756771/trebuchette-the-snap-together-desktop-trebuchet

I recently bought into this one after seeing the story on hacker news. So they can be about anything, this one just happens to be fun for both contributors and those who receive the contributions. Besides being totally geek oriented, after all who would not want a toy to fling stuff at co workers?

Title is a quote from an email I received yesterday from the Open Goldberg project. Here's the quote in full:

I wish to thank the Music Publishers Association of the UK for retracting their DMCA complaint to GoDaddy. GoDaddy's standard response to a DMCA copyright complaint of this nature is to freeze the domain for 10 days, instead of referring the complaint to the site owner. Thus we all owe the MPA-UK sincere thanks for their retraction.

WTF?! No, what MPA (and GoDaddy) /deserve/ are heaping helpings of scorn. That they realized their mistake and fixed it is just a token act in a tragedy that *they* caused, and shouldn't have happened in the first place.

but I'm just going to take it to Fark.

Take it to this guy.

To be or not to be? (gunshots) Not to be.

The MADE's fundraising is at a critical place right now. The nonprofit has 19 days to raise a little less than $5000 in addition to their existing funds in order to make the museum a reality! If not, this scholarly resource is going to disappear.

Take a look at their kickstarter page here, and donate, if you can: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/themade/the-museum-of-art-and-digital-entertainment

How do I as a user decide whether to download such books?

I think you asked a wonderful question. Right now, I believe the best answer is to go here but that answer is not very useful.

Another answer is to go here but that isn't terribly useful either.

Another resource is here.

I agree with you, though. Being able to answer the question "How to I find talented, yet undiscovered authors so I can read their work?" is a question that begs to be answered.

Kickstarter seems like a very good idea and I'm glad I followed the links related to this particular post.
There are some great minds out there and I hope this sort of venue can help those people pursue what they excel at for the betterment of us all.
Thanks to the ./ post, this "One man's quest" received some additional coin from me as well, since I consider his track-record impressive enough to warrant belief in his next enterprise.

Steve Grand is funding the development on kickstarter.

He's decided to ignore traditional publishers and do everything himself to make sure it comes out right. Probably a good idea too, Creatures isn't a very normal game, and having a publisher fund it would almost certainly mean they'd try to dumb it down.

There is the new site:

http://freedomboxfoundation.org/

and you can donate.

Maybe this is motivation for contributing to the Freedom Box project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/721744279/push-the-freedombox-foundation-from-0-to-60-in-30

With an initial capitalization via Kickstarter (instead of VC or stock exchange).

Actually this is essentially how Kickstarter fundraising works, but admittedly on a much larger scale. The budget for the project a deadline for the money to be raised are set and anyyone can pledge money, but no one is actually charged unless the funding goal is reached. If it is, everyone's money is automatically debited; if not, the project has failed to meet its target and none of the backers lose out.

Now, this presupposes that merely raising the $50m will actually guarantee the film gets made - which it doesn't - but with a large number of small backers, the risk to each is limited. And when it's made they all get a free digital version of the finished product. The only guarantee of quality is whatever pre-production artwork and other information can be used to entice people to contribute.

Obviously backers that way are not traditional investors and don't get a share in profits. Instead they have rewards based on their contribution. $30 might get a DVD version of the completed film, $50 the blu-ray, $100 signed artwork, $1000 some set piece memorabilia, etc.

Do I think you can actually, workably scale this kind of idea up to the level of Hollywood film production? Probably not, but it's not entirely ridiculous either.

your desire to use your kitteh to login to your computer.

Shoot, the FBI is knocking on my door. Welp, time to napalm the security authentication token... uh oh...

I CAN NOT HAZ DESTRUCTABLE!

I'd destroy my hard drive too if I got word the government was coming. They don't need to know that I donated to wikileaks and other projects.

Truly sir your tinfoil is 20 mil.

I don't think the feds care much either about donation to Wikileaks or your desire to use your kitteh to login to your computer.

Because they said they'd built that car out of cheerios and succeeded.

Once again: WE KNOW that you can build a social network, and we also know that you can build an open-source social network. It's been done. The project was not "interesting" from that perspective - Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Appleseed, and a host of other 'social networks' have already done one or both of those things.

The key differentiator for Diaspora was the goal of creating a secure, decentralized model that put the user in charge of their own privacy. The differentiator emphatically WAS NOT that they were "open source" - again, that's already been proven to be possible by other projects.

Which brings us to the question of why we *should* give a shit about Diaspora. I'll let their Kickstarter writeup speak for itself, here's what they had to say:

We believe that privacy and connectedness do not have to be mutually exclusive. With Diaspora, we are reclaiming our data, securing our social connections, and making it easy to share on your own terms. We think we can replace today's centralized social web with a more secure and convenient decentralized network. Diaspora will be easy to use, and it will be centered on you instead of a faceless hub.

Please point out for me where they say "we aim to open source Facebook," because I'm not seeing it.

The GOAL of Diaspora was to create a more-secure social networking environment which gave control of user privacy back to the users.

The METHOD they intended to use was to open-source what they produced, and then build a community around it.

The RESULT was an unmitigated mess: the code they spent months writing did NOTHING to achieve their stated goals, in fact it was even LESS secure and private than Facebook, because it ignored standard and common security and privacy practices - things which should be part of your design from the ground up, including user authentication and access control for each and every operation the system performs.

They started out by saying "We're going to build an alternative which puts the user in control of their data." They created an alternative which puts ANY user in control of ANY data.

This is not trolling, this is an honest assessment of the progress & results of Diaspora. Their goals were more security & more privacy. They achieved neither of those goals with the code they wrote. Open source is not some magic sauce you marinate your code in in order to improve it, but suddenly the entire focus of Diaspora has gone from "it's more secure and more private," (their initial, stated goals) to "it's open source," as if that forgives the multitude of failings that the code has, simply because a bunch of people can read the source that implements those design flaws.

There are people working on solving this problem, check out for example this link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/Musopen/record-and-release-free-music-without-copyrights

You know, 6479 persons have already contributed way before any work was started. In fact, considering that 9 people gave $1000+ individually, the devs aren't the ones who contributed more 'till now.

I don't understand why Diaspora has had saturation coverage in the mainstream press (and pretty heavy coverage here, for that matter) before it even went alpha, but identi.ca gets so little.

Because a lot of people have their eyes on Diaspora for a variety of reasons. This is not just a test of Diaspora but also Kickstarter which is the fundraising site they used to get the money to make this project. They went on Kickstarter and proposed to write "Diaspora - the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network" if they got $10,000 worth of funds. Because Facebook privacy, or lack of it was in the news at the time, they ended up with just over $200,000 in funds from several thousand donators, some who donated more than $2000. The way Kickstarter works is if the level of funding is reached, then the money is with withdrawn and given to the people it was pledged to. If they had gotten the money and never even produced code, it would not only have been a disaster for Diaspora, but also Kickstarter. Now that code has actually be produced and it is open source, it bodes well not just for them but also Kickstarter and using the internet for fund your projects.

Then there is still the core goal of producing that Facebook replacement with privacy in mind. Lots of people want that if only to put pressure on Facebook to pay attention to their own privacy concerns.

"Seriously, a bunch of kids from NYU... what did you expect?"

I would expect better from a bunch of "kids" that were given $200,000 to make the site. I think most of /. could have done a better job if we were given $200,000.

"Something doesn't have to convince every user just to succeed."

Maybe not every user, but it does need to convince everyone I want to know and I just don't see Diaspora doing that. Facebook, after ~5 years, has 500 million users, and it's steadily been growing by 100 million users every 160 days. That's huge, and unless Facebook really messes up, I mean messes up to the point that it's on the nightly news and 20/20 saying how horrible they are so every grandma that doesn't read /. even knows how horrible they are, I just don't see anyone knocking them out of the way.

Facebook has 2 billion results
Diaspora has 20 million, and many of those are wiki entries, music, and a video game.

And these latest reports that Diaspora is riddled with security issues has hit the news big time.

I think this is the last we'll hear of Diaspora. They were given $200,000 and couldn't even make a secure site. That's pretty damn disappointing.

I wouldn't say that the cost of creating content is negligible. A friend of mine is currently trying raise money to produce a high-production-values science fiction miniseries. (shameless plug) From what I understand, $10k per episode (which I wouldn't call negligible) is a pretty shoestring budget for that sort of thing, even without paying the talent while it gets off the ground.