Hello Adam, On 26/09/11 21:44, Adam Egan wrote: I was inspired by last year's Diaspora* Kickstarter spree to investigate all the open and federated alternatives to Facebook [1], and as well as the article gave an Ignite talk on it. However, it was only this week I got back on Diaspora* after a long absence, and I can't say I've used Google+ much either. But as I'm not tweeting [2] much either atm, it's not a particular reflection on Diaspora*. The proliferation of new, federated networks is perhaps the best argument for federated networks :) The idea that you should surrender your privacy, and asked to be advertised at, as the price of connecting with others on the Internet seems a bad bargain. Free Software advocates have a responsibility to promote and develop easy ways to get back control of one's data. Has everyone seen Eben Moglen's "Freedom in the Cloud" talk that kicked off the whole thing? [4] - Richard [1] <http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/features/social-networking-the-good-the-bad-th... [2] Other Microblogs are available [3] [3] e.g. http://identi.ca/richardsmedley/replies [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOEMv0S8AcA

Thanks for your detailed comments Richard, I quite like the 'parental computing' article, it makes a good point! Would anyone else like to chip in their two cents? Adam On 27 September 2011 15:03, Richard Smedley <smedley358(a)btinternet.com&gt; wrote: