Diaspora is an alternative to Facebook.  One might say how on earth could anyone challenge Facebook, especially with a service that basically does the same thing, but just does it a little differently?  Well, what Diaspora does is give a much greater focus to what a social network is all about – i.e. connection with small groups of people that you probably already have a relationship ‘in the real world’.  Consequently it also makes privacy and ownership of information a much bigger deal (the Achilles heel of Facebook).

Diaspora was launched in September and it may not get off the runway, but it is gathering interest right now – so worth tracking, because Facebook is vulnerable.

Facebook will eventually fall over because of the scale of its ambition and the fact that it has already strayed a long way from what it originally set out to do and does well.  It wants you to do all of social media from within Fortress Facebook – and the one thing we should know about social media is that it erodes walls and detests containment.  This will prove its downfall.

Here is something on Facebook I wrote a couple of years ago – I think it still stands.  And here is some more analysis on Facebook’s business model