• The Next Web, Friday, May 14, 2010 2:56 PM

Not everyone is as bullish about Diaspora* as The New York Times, which positioned the social upstart as a potential Facebook alternative in a Thursday profile. Its young founders "have touched a nerve among the thousands of people who feel jilted by Facebook's recent actions," writes The Next Web's Alex Wilhelm. "That said, the idea behind Diaspora* (its implementation) is overly complex and won't work for the large majority of Facebook users."

As its founders describe it, Diaspora* will let users set up their own personal servers, dubbed "seeds," create their own hubs, and fully control the information they share. In Wilhelm's words, "Diaspora* gives its users privacy by forcing them to host their own node that contains their information." Adds Wilhelm, "Not to say that hosting a personal FriendFeed and attempting to link it to my friends and their own FriendFeeds does not sound like fun, but it would be mind-numbingly tedious for most ... The friction to get started is far too high for this project to ever gain real traction."

Read the whole story at The Next Web »