(For those new to Diaspora, it is a fairly high-profile rival to Facebook announced at the height of recent Facebook user privacy disputes and launched with significant funding from online donations via Kickstarter).

Anyway, the general gist is that there isn't actually that much to see right now (the interface is very bare, and activity is minimal according to some reviewers) but it is nonetheless interesting to have a peek at this project even at this early stage, if only because of the relatively hefty media attention it generated over the past year.

Here are my two top tips review-wise: Mashable and Risto Kurppa - neither is over wordy and both have a nice mix of images and a few initial user impressions. It'll be interesting to see how Diaspora develops from what seems right now to be  a bit of an underwhelming start...

Basically, a third party-designed Chrome extension has finally made the breakthrough of enabling full porting of Facebook friends' email addresses into your Gmail account. It worked (tested by TC) for about 10 minutes after their post about it went up - and has since ceased to function. Sounds a bit dodgy doesn't it? There's no confirmation yet of whether this is down to a block from Facebook or something else entirely though, while the app is strictly unaffiliated with either Google or Facebook, it is clear that it is the latter whose views on data reciprocity are questioned by the extension - so a Facebook block is hardly an absurd assumption to jump to.

I find this whole episode rather interesting in the context of some comments made by Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the web, inasmuch as it could be attributed to a single person) last week, in which he stated that the creation of 'closed worlds' such as Facebook (who generally seek to minimise data reciprocity unless it directly benefits them - regardless of what users would like) risks 'fragmenting' the web and generally undermining the principles of openness which, he believes, are key to what the internet has to offer for innovation, creativity, democracy and so on.

Well, it seems that Sir Tim's arguments of last week have now been provided with yet another concrete example around which they can be discussed and understood. After all, if we're honest, we all know that a Chrome extension such as the one in question here weakens Facebook's position in its competition with Google. It is understandable therefore that Facebook would want to protect to some extent the uniqueness of their position (controlling the data and social networking of a staggering 600million users) since their entire significance is based precisely upon these two attributes - the data they have access to, and the number of people it concerns.

However, in this case, the data in question here (users' email addresses) can in no way be seen by anyone, including Facebook, to belong to the network. As the simple caption from the extension's designer makes clear below, Facebook have little justification for their position on this aspect of data reciprocity, other than fear of Google and the desire to maintain their exclusive position as sole handler of people's online social networks: there is no benefit to users in having porting to Google denied, is there?

This is where Facebook treads a fine line, and one which even their huge success cannot insure them against the pitfalls of getting wrong. Even though this represents just one small spat in the overall picture, I can't help but feel that it signals the aspect where Facebook could become increasingly weak against other competition - in terms of its privacy policies (see Diaspora for example), data reciprocity and so on. In other words, Facebook becoming one of Tim Berners-Lee's 'closed worlds' could slowly but surely begin to count against it - because, while it might be good for the monetization potential of the network, the truth is that nobody wants to spend their time in such limited and restricted spaces - online, or not.

Facebook responded with some excuse about third-party sites keeping this data online, and re-iterated that they themselves had actually deleted the data. Anyway, with both parties basically calling eachother liars, Techcrunch thought they'd do some actual research rather than merely report the mud-slinging match - and hence tested Mahalo's policy on account termination.

Surprise, surprise - it's actually harder to quit Mahalo than Facebook, and nigh on impossible to get your data out (which is one of Calcanis's main criticisms of Facebook). All in all, once we set aside the fascinating gossip-fest of watching silicon valley tech celebs tweeting grumpily about eachother, a rather more serious question emerges over the general state of play with regard to data control on social networks.

The unmistakeable trend that users are experiencing is that while it's extremely quick and easy to create expansive profiles and upload hordes of details and info about yourself, it's much, much harder to get it out again afterwards. It seems that this is increasingly emerging as a key issue that requires very delicate balancing if a network is to attract/retain users and also ensure some sort of profitable revenue model. (The recent funding success of wannabe Facebook rival, Diaspora, is further testament to this - see a previous post on this blog for more).

This is without doubt a major topic for social networks over coming months and, for mature networks like Facebook, represents the last major hurdle before reaching serious profitability. As the discussions and debates continue on the topic, it seems likely also that, for the first time since social networking arrived online, the most important factor for users choosing a network will not only be the choice of network used by their peers/friends etc. Instead, one expects that users will 'shop around' a little more, now that network choice has proliferated - and one essential aspect in their decisions will be the nature of the accompanying privacy policy of the network.

Dejan Levi

Furthermore, with the 'Quit Facebook Day' (organised by disaffected former users of the network) on May 31st seemingly attracting a reasonable number of quitters (somewhere in the region of 35k users), it seems that Facebook's bad press on publicity is coming at no small cost. Of course, a network will always lose some users with changes that it makes and indeed FB will not be too troubled by the numbers just yet, though I don't doubt they will be concerned about the negative image that all this is building.

Unsurprisingly, Mark Zuckerberg is having to answer a lot of questions on this issue - and his appearance at the All things digital conference in California yesterday is no exception (see some of our previous coverage of this event for more). Techcrunch has a decent write-up of Zuckerberg's particular handling of the privacy issues as well as links to some handy video highlights.

With news coming earlier in the week that former US president, George Bush (junior) is the latest high profile figure to join the network, there can now be little doubt that Facebook more and more represents a rather mature and mainstream social network, and one that is increasingly being geared towards serious commercialisation - which was much less the case 3 or 4 years ago.

I expect Zuckerberg and most of those at Facebook understand that a little bad press is simply the price that will be paid for the pretty significant changes which are required to make the network a real money-spinner. As his interview at the D8 conference (linked above) shows, there is a sense at Facebook that such complaints and objections are simply a bit of initial grumbling, and have no real power to seriously upset anything in the long run, though nonetheless I for one will be keeping a close eye on Diaspora as it develops - if only for the re-assurance of knowing there is a viable alternative if Facebook's privacy policy really starts to annoy - even more than it already does.

Dejan Levi