An overdue update from the Diaspora team

The Diaspora team has put out an update on their progress in creating a “privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network“. The project raised a fairly large sum of money to fund its efforts, and now it is reporting back. “We are spending a good chunk of time concentrating on building clear, contextual sharing. That means an intuitive way for users to decide, and not notice deciding, what content goes to their coworkers and what goes to their drinking buddies. We know that’s a hard UI problem and we take it seriously. The publicity and money that you have given us has let us work with great designers like Janice Frasier, through her new program LUXr, whose constant reminders that we are not the user have kept us honest and focused. Pivotal Labs has also helped us prioritize, and we have pushed back more technical features like plugins and APIs in favor of simple and high value features.“