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Open Facebook alternative Appleseed is on IndieGoGo -- and looking for funding
The Appleseed Project's been going through a bit of a resurgence lately, and along with a redone source page and a growing amount of mentions in the media, the project is now getting serious about funding. Project-founder Michael Chisari has set the goal he's looking to meet at $10,000 -- and you can donate at IndieGoGo, the fundraising site where Appleseed is listed.
Chisari's stated on the fundraising page that any excess funds will be used for documentation and non-profit promotion of the project. Also, if you've got the itch, you can actually contribute in other ways and try Appleseed yourself -- since this open-source project actually has a working prototype available right now. Just don't expect any bells or whistles quite yet.
You may recall Appleseed getting mentioned recently in our sister-posts, "Why Diaspora will win" and "Why Diaspora will fail." We got a lot of comment love (and hate) in those posts, and whichever side of the fence you fall on, it's clear that the community is very interested in open-source alternatives to networks like Facebook.
A best-case scenario would be multiple, viable alternatives to choose from, and the best way to ensure that such projects actually develop is to fund them. At the time of this article, Appleseed's only raised $470, so they could definitely use some help.
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsfiendsanMay 25th 2010 12:22PM
yeah its cool, but unlike diaspora, appleseed has been around for a long time, why would we help a developer that had basically quit the project and let it hang for years and now just cause a similar one step up, he decides to ride that wave...hummm not too sure if i trust such a developer...
Sax25May 25th 2010 12:36PM
AppleSeed and Diaspora are not going to get anywhere. AppleSeed have lost the momentum, while Diaspora is trying to ride on the tails of Facebooks privacy farce, but they miss one crucial thing. They have nothing for people to sign up to right now. People angry and upset over Facebooks privacy issue need a place to jump ship NOW, not "end of summer."
Besides with all the talk about Facebook privacy, most people will still stick to it and will not be going anywhere. The most crucial thing is that everyones friends are most likely on Facebook. That is the whole point of social networking. Who the hell is going to jump ship if your friends don't jump ship with you? And while you might be up in arms over Facebooks privacy, it doesn't mean that your friends will feel the same and want to go with you.
So with all these factors - AppleSeed and Diaspora will not succeed. There are already established social networking sites that don't have such privacy issues as Facebook has - so if people really wanted to go somewhere else - there are choices. I don't see anybody dragging their friends over to Hi5 or Friendster or anytime soon.
BuggerMay 25th 2010 2:33PM
It's open source, so what stop some crooks from setup a fraudulent social service with it & salvaging sensitive data from people?
StrypeyJun 17th 2010 5:01AM
"so what stop some crooks from setup a fraudulent social service with it & salvaging sensitive data from people?"
You mean a site like FaceBook?
Actually it's a good question. You've raised an issue of trust. I tend to trust people who develop their own server-side software, free the code, and run a free service on it. They are giving something they have put work into away. That shows a generosity of spirit.
Someone running a site based on *someone else's* free code gets a more skeptical evaluation. Who are they? What are their motivations? What are their economic interests? Trusting sites that claim to offer privacy is, and will always be a judgement call, whether they run on free code or not. However, at least the free code can be examined by other programmers to see if it actually does what is claimed, and see if it does anything it shouldn't. Try doing that with FaceBook's code.
coolhappenedJul 11th 2010 9:33PM
There is an alternative to facebook coming this September. It's called somethingcoolhappened.com. You will be able to upload videos, pictures and stories of cool things that happen to you or someone you know. You will also be able to create your own custom avatar! It's going to be very cool. Check it out!