[adventured]

> Had Diaspora been around before FB

I'd be willing to guarantee that with a name like Diaspora, it could have never achieved mass adoption under any circumstances. Most people won't know what that word means. The name sounds terrible and unfriendly, more like a disease than a social network your mother would want to join. Diaspora is another example of engineers not understanding how to make a product, top to bottom, for the general public.

[kbart]

I tend to agree. Naming is important and if you target masses (non-engineers, non-geeks etc.), you should name your product so that even a 5 years old kid would understand it without a second thought and memorize instantly. An anecdote, but I have harder times convincing people to use LibreOffice than OpenOffice for no reason other than a name.