Revenue model for Diaspora* and all decentralized social networks

@camil yep, I have concrete plan in the roadmap above. We need API between the popular decentralized FLO networks and the popular FLO CMS. Anyone interested?
Also, we need to optimize the infrastructure cost, with plugin/framework bundles for all extensible platforms, but this is a challenge more on the CMS side for now, then here.

@augier

FSF already have it’s own SN : GNU Social.

GNU Social has a very similar problem like Diaspora. By Free Software I mean generally a software under Free Software license(or FLO)

We need API between the popular decentralized FLO networks and the popular FLO CMS. Anyone interested?

Hmmf... :/
I think you'll have to wait a looooooooooong time since we have almost nobody to work on actual issues...

No, it depends - we could engage for example people who develop course projects for their university studies or need a playground.

We could organize also hackatons for people, who would support Diaspora and attract the sponsors, who used to sponsor FLO events. We could ask the events organizers of the popular hackatons for Wordpress, for example, and the Social browsers/ FLO browsers to speak about Diaspora and attract attention to the idea of having decentralized profile.

We could also open a job board for employers, who are interested in working with people sharing the ideas of the Free/Libre/Open Source software. This can attract more people to Diaspora, who are interested in helping it as a side project or integrating it to their business.

we have almost nobody to work on actual issues

Maybe this should be our next media and/or #thunderclap campaign?

Instead of trying to get millions of people signing up, lets go recruit some rails developers!

I've seen too many failures of the "social browser" concept within VC funded companies from as far back as 1999. Why would a social browser work with a volunteer network? Who would fund the development of desktop software when mobile apps are the biggest target for "social" these days?

I think it would be interesting to have content subscription models, like paywalled newsletters. also some kind of Klout like influence system could be a good way to start figuring out sales potential.

most importantly, how do you measure the TCO of a profile? I know dating sites rely heavily on profile TCO but what is the incentive for D* users? I think it's exclusively vanity at this moment.

We could organize also hackatons for people, who would support Diaspora and attract the sponsors, who used to sponsor FLO events. We could ask the events organizers of the popular hackatons for Wordpress, for example, and the Social browsers/ FLO browsers to speak about Diaspora and attract attention to the idea of having decentralized profile.

A hackaton would be nice. We already found some locations for it, actually. One in France, one in Moldova.

We could also open a job board for employers, who are interested in working with people sharing the ideas of the Free/Libre/Open Source software. This can attract more people to Diaspora, who are interested in helping it as a side project or integrating it to their business.

Now that looks like something more realistic to me. I'm currently developing a project based on diaspora* for some folks in Romania. I do it for money and fun. I try to contribute back as much as I can. I think a business based on customizing diaspora*, or installing it for enterprises would be healthy, much like the companies around GNU Health, MySQL, Postgres.

A hackaton would be nice. We already found some locations for it, actually. One in France, one in Moldova.

Could you give more infos ?
I try to organize some kind of metup in France for this summer. 4-5 persons, a week-end and see if we can do bigger next time.

@Lee Azzarello

I’ve seen too many failures of the “social browser” concept within VC funded companies from as far back as 1999. Why would a social browser work with a volunteer network? Who would fund the development of desktop software when mobile apps are the biggest target for “social” these days?

That's why the social browser is the last milestone in the time scale of my roadmap. The social browsers will be profile-centric as the decentralized social profile's functionality will interact with all business models we intact with. There won't be any more signing up with an email (or it will be optional) - there will be signing up with a customized social profile, which will allow you to see how your friends interacted with the same business(according their preferences for visibility). So far the social browsers were platform-centric, but the platforms(Facebook, Twitter, G+) change their architecture. So that's why the social browser is basically Facebook.

The social browser should be a 'wrapper' of the social profile, for better social management.

So far, the mobile apps are the closest model to the social browser. In the future, the social browser will contain functionality to manage your personal CRM(not contact list), you personal preferences how to interact with apps and many other metrics, available now only to the owners and business clients of the social networks.

I think it would be interesting to have content subscription models, like paywalled newsletters. also some kind of Klout like influence system could be a good way to start figuring out sales potential.

Yes, some of the functionalities(plugins) of the social browser and the social profiles will be paid, as now are paid the advanced frameworks of Wordpress.

most importantly, how do you measure the TCO of a profile? I know dating sites rely heavily on profile TCO but what is the incentive for D* users? I think it’s exclusively vanity at this moment.

*subscription(license) cost
*hosting
*maintenance
*paid plugins
*security costs - consultancy, maintenance, plugins
*optimization costs - consultancy, maintenance, plugins
*design costs - consultancy, maintenance, paid themes

In Facebook, the TCO of an user profile is $0 for the customer, that's why Facebook is free, plug and play. All the costs of the optimization, R&D, security and design are covered by them. So that's why there are ads and also terms and conditions regarding the ownership of your content.

@rich1

Instead of trying to get millions of people signing up, lets go recruit some rails developers!

Yes, exactly. I think we should make a list of all universities around the world, teaching:

• computer science
• business
• social studies
• entrepreneurship

and ask all their professors if they could agree promoting the values of Diaspora to their students and attract them to write course project about it. We need more people who would not only write code, but manage documentations, project-manage some milestones and provide strategic advise about business opportunities for Diaspora.

There are also companies like Pivotal Labs who partnered in the past providing office space to Diaspora - we could approach them and offer them hosting hackatons as a part of popularization/recruitment campaigns.

This could be an initial handshake between the Diaspora community and the business.
We could make a list of FLO software consulting companies and approach them about this and later launch a global event&job board.

We can make this all happen faster if we come up with viral idea like the one of Ice bucket challenge for quicker approaching the target people (;

@dumitruursu

I’m currently developing a project based on diaspora* for some folks in Romania. I do it for money and fun. I try to contribute back as much as I can. I think a business based on customizing diaspora*, or installing it for enterprises would be healthy, much like the companies around GNU Health, MySQL, Postgres.

Great!! Could you write a case-study about it? I could give you account to guest-post it on my blog: http://decentralizedmodel.wordpress.com

I think it's good if we make a hashtag or activity stream about such case studies and promote nonstop what we do with Diaspora.

Also, there is a guy in the mailing list, called Kevin Martin, who asked for tasks he could help with to Diaspora. Maybe he could develop the job board or something else he prefers. Can you assist him finding the best opportunity for himself?
He wrote:

Hi,
I'm a computer science student on my final year and I was hoping to do something for diaspora as my final year project (coursework). Are there any features/tasks that is suitable and is somewhat algorithmic? I heard that groups feature is something of the sort.
If we can find a project, we (me and another student) will be working on it during the next semester (starts this december and lasts till may). Please respond if you can think of something we can do.
I'm familiar with c, java, python and some javascript. I know that diaspora uses ruby and I will be investing time on learning it.