Remember when you had to have an @edu email address to gain
entry into Facebook's once-closed social network? Those days are no
more, but a new social network pitching itself as a "Facebook
alternative" wants to bring that level of privacy back to today's
students. Collegiate Nation,
a site that has been in development since 2007, is now poised to take
advantage of the recent Facebook privacy debacle with the launch of a
new network for college students only.

Besides the network's exclusivity, there are three other factors that
could make it an easy sell for those looking for a way out of the
Facebook rat race. According to mom-turned-entrepreneur Evelyn
Castillo-Bach, the woman behind the network's creation, Collegiate
Nation's three main pillars are: Privacy, No Advertisements
and Total User Control.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/a_new_facebook_collegiate_nation_offers_private_alternative.php

http://www.collegiatenation.com/

Diaspora

A group of students from New York University are poised to capitalize
on publlic dissatisfaction with Facebook and its seeming disregard
for user privacy. Venture Beat reports
they have raised
more than $120,000 from at least 3,000 contributors who
want to back their project, Diaspora. (A quick check of their Kickstarter
page on Friday revealed the numbers have jumped even
higher.)

 

Referred
to as "the anti-Facebook," Diaspora is a designed to be a
"decentralized" social
network that actually gives each user control of his or
her own information as well as control of if or how it will be shared.
The founders' core beliefs are summed up this way:

[P]rivacy and connectedness do not have to be
mutually exclusive. With Diaspora, we are reclaiming our data, securing
our social connections, and making it easy to share on your own terms.
We think we can replace today’s centralized social web with a more
secure and convenient decentralized network. Diaspora will be easy to
use, and it will be centered on you instead of a faceless hub.

Forgive
me Facebook (and Google, and all the rest), but I think Diaspora's
ability to raise so much money from so many people in so little time
(less than a month) may mean more people care about their privacy than
your leaders are willing to admit. If users don't trust your company
with their info, they won't be slow to find another network that will.
Diaspora fits the bill.

http://www.joindiaspora.com/

and before you haters start criticizing, remember that facebook started out  small and as an alternative to people sick of myspace, hi5...for college students only

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