Mark Zuckerberg made a donation of $25, if I remember correctly. So he was just one donor of many. We've never had any contact with him and don't know him personally. Here's what Zuckerberg himself said about the donation in an <a href="http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/zuckerberg-interview/">interview with Wired Magazine</a>:<div>
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<i>Wired.com</i>: What do you think of the push for an open, federated social network and the four NYU students who raised $200,000 for the Diaspora project without having a single line of code?<br></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; ">
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<i>Zuckerberg</i>: I donated. I think it is a cool idea.<br></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; ">
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Actually it reminds me of this cool thing we built early on called Wirehog. Early on, it was clear that users wanted more photos on the site. There were a set of users who would change their one profile picture every day. And we looked at that data and took that as people want to share more photos.<br>
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But photos are expensive and we didn’t have an infrastructure. We were just trying to grow the site and add more colleges to the site. So we built this personal web server that people could install on their computer where they could put all their files on it — which at the time were mostly photos but it supported videos and music — and share it with your friends. So in a way it was the prototypical platform app, but it was also a decentralized way to share information.</blockquote>
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So I think it is a cool idea just based on that.<br></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; ">
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I think it is cool people are trying to do it. I see a little of myself in them. It’s just their approach that the world could be better and saying, “We should try to do it.”<br></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; ">
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<i>(Editor’s note: Wirehog was killed off by Facebook after Facebook’s then-president Sean Parker — who co-founded Napster — argued that Wirehog would face the same ugly legal death that the infamous peer-to-peer music sharing site did. On Wednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Parker called it “illegal” and said he “put a bullet in it.”)<br>
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In an interesting way, a lot of the privacy stuff is much easier to do in a centralized environment. Some of the simple stuff like friend-to-friend, peer-to-peer stuff is simple, but once you start getting into friends-of-friends, you start running into problems like we did with Wirehog. If someone can come up with a new approach, then [that's] awesome.</blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>Some have speculated that the donation was an attempt to de-legitimize us. I don't really think that's true. I can't imagine Mark Zuckerberg wasting any sleep over us.</div><div><br></div>
<div>Yosem</div><div><br></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 3:19 AM, martin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:martin@siamect.com">martin@siamect.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<u></u>
<div>
I read that some of the founding of Diaspora comes from the founder of FB. <br>
It that true?<br><font color="#888888">
Martin</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
On Sun, 2011-10-16 at 02:41 -0700, Yosem Companys wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="CITE">
This post may be of interest: Diaspora* is not about killing Facebook or Google+. It's about reinventing the social web:<a href="http://joindiaspora.com/posts/433064" target="_blank">http://joindiaspora.com/posts/433064</a>
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<br>
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Diaspora* is all about protecting the open web and fighting against walled gardens. We're inspired by Eben Moglen <a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/establishments/68512/" target="_blank">http://nymag.com/news/features/establishments/68512/</a>, so our goals are consistent with FreedomBox. Another good piece is this one: <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/the-making-of-diaspora" target="_blank">http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/the-making-of-diaspora</a>
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Our funding goal is to raise as much as we can to keep the <a href="http://diasporafoundation.org/" target="_blank">http://diasporafoundation.org/</a> going and sustain our development. We raised $250K via Kickstarter last summer, which lasted us over a year. If you want a tangible number, my personal goal would be to raise $1 million per year so we can support Diaspora* community spaces where our open-source developers can work face-to-face to greatly expand our development efforts.
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<br>
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Best,
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<br>
<br>
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Yosem
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On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 12:15 AM, Melvin Carvalho <<a href="mailto:melvincarvalho@gmail.com" target="_blank">melvincarvalho@gmail.com</a>> wrote:
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<blockquote>
On 16 October 2011 02:28, Yosem Companys <<a href="mailto:companys@stanford.edu" target="_blank">companys@stanford.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
> Hi All,<br>
> My name is Yosem, and I'm a member of this list, though I generally don't<br>
> say much. I'm a PhD student at Stanford but also work running the Diaspora*<br>
> Foundation.<br>
> If you'd like invites, please let me know, and I'll be happy to send you<br>
> one. If you have any questions, please let me know too. Happy to answer<br>
> them. We're very transparent, non-commercial, and community-run. You won't<br>
> get any BS from us.<br>
> Since a lot of people still have questions about Diaspora*, we took a moment<br>
> to address some of the things we have been hearing lately. We hope you'll<br>
> take a<br>
> look: <a href="http://blog.diasporafoundation.org/2011/10/15/diaspora-not-vaporware-not-a-nigerian-prince.html" target="_blank">http://blog.diasporafoundation.org/2011/10/15/diaspora-not-vaporware-not-a-nigerian-prince.html</a><br>
> Anyway, I'm at your disposal. Ask away.<br>
<br>
<br>
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<blockquote>
Thanks for pointing this out, that was an interesting read.<br>
<br>
If I've understood your financial statement correctly, you're looking<br>
to raise another $100, to keep going for the next year?<br>
<br>
My question is, does diaspora have plans to interoperate with other<br>
(non diaspora) FOSS social system, on the Web? If so, which ones?
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<br>
> Best,<br>
> Yosem<br>
><br>
><br>
> On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 1:09 PM, Weaver <<a href="mailto:weaver@riseup.net" target="_blank">weaver@riseup.net</a>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:41:14 +0200<br>
>> Brandon Invergo <<a href="mailto:b.invergo@gmail.com" target="_blank">b.invergo@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> > No sooner did I write that defense of Diaspora than I read this<br>
>> > article:<br>
>> ><br>
>> > <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20111013/at-lunch-with-diaspora-the-non-profit-open-source-social-network-built-by-outsiders/" target="_blank">http://allthingsd.com/20111013/at-lunch-with-diaspora-the-non-profit-open-source-social-network-built-by-outsiders/</a><br>
>> > In which they float the idea of charging people for running a pod. At<br>
>> > the same time, a friend on Facebook who has been waiting for an<br>
>> > invite to <a href="http://joindiaspora.com" target="_blank">joindiaspora.com</a> was talking about how he felt that they<br>
>> > were soliciting invites in exchange for donations. I'm assuming he<br>
>> > just got the same email as everyone else asking for donations but<br>
>> > since they also sent it to the people waiting for invitations, it was<br>
>> > difficult not to make that assumption.<br>
>><br>
>> <snip><br>
>><br>
>> That's definitely happening.<br>
>> I'm still waiting for an 'invitation' and got the email asking for $25<br>
>> with the assurance that everybody donating wouldn't have to wait any<br>
>> longer.<br>
>> Young blokes beginning to see the uptake of a new project and eyeing<br>
>> Zuckerburg potentials is how I see it.<br>
>> If it carries on I might be declining the 'invitation' before I receive<br>
>> it.<br>
>> Regards,<br>
>><br>
>> Weaver.<br>
>> --<br>
>> "In a world without walls and fences,<br>
>> what need have we for Windows or Gates?"<br>
>> -Anon.<br>
>><br>
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