[Joeboy]

> can anyone give me a good reason why it's a good idea to keep giving Diaspora money

I haven't, but from what I can see, if you want a distributed Facebook alternative Diaspora is, for all its faults, really the only game in town. In the real, non-HN world it has buzz way beyond Appleseed, Friendika et al. An impressive number of my non-tech friends are excited about Diaspora, and don't have a clue about its competitors.

[tonybaldwin]

Diaspora, which I am using and do like, is definitely not the only game in town for decentralized, federated social networking. Friendika is, in my opinion, more mature and has more features, better federation with other networks, and is also widely used, mostly in Europe and Brazil, but there are also "pods" based in the US and Canada. It's great stuff, and is even federated with Diaspora (the two networks see each other's sites as pods on their own network). Diaspora does seem to have gotten more press. I haven't quite figured that out, but it's likely due to their funding?

[Joeboy]

> Friendika ... is also widely used

That's interesting. Last time I looked I got put off by the confusing pod options but I will try to pay it more attention.