Diaspora’s (YC S12) Next Act: Social Remixing Site Makr.io

This is exactly what the internet needs less of. Sad to see the diaspora guys reduced to overlaying unfunny text captions over jpgs.

I know we had this discussion a lot, but I can't be the only one to find this trend a little disturbing.<p>I seriously admired (and still do) the Diaspora guys for tackling probably the hardest problem there is, replacing facebook with a distributed alternative. And things have probably been a lot tougher than any of us can imagine.<p>However, how do you go from the ambitious Facebook-Killer to an quickmeme/pinterest mashup, especially from the godfather YC? I know all the big things start small somewhere, but something just doesnt feel right to me. There must be some secret sauce that only pg et al. know.

Wow.. that's soooo much like <a href="https://canv.as/x/everything" rel="nofollow">https://canv.as/x/everything</a> (aka the site built by 4chan moot).<p>Besides there is so many of such sites already, it makes me sad to think that resources are wasted there instead of on Diaspora (or other "usefull" stuff).

So does that mean that Diaspora dream of replacing Facebook is dead? A Facebook login option and .io domain points strongly in that direction.

They say it's hard, yet nobody is gonna pay anything for this. That's the worst of both worlds. These guys still haven't learned their lesson from making Diaspora.

Visiting the home page gives the impression of someone's not-quite-technical mother trying to "do a meme."

Login with Facebook, Pinterest + 9Gag clone, meme... What the hell??? Hmm, it smells like April Fools to me but... it's not even April =/

To me, this just demonstrates the problems that arise when you say you're trying to tackle this huge gigantic problem. There's a ton of building hype, and then people are disappointed/scornful when you can't deliver. It reminds me a bit of the Thiel Fellowship.<p>Maybe this YC class is just a result of many lessons learned. It does seem the problems they tackle are, for lack of a better word, lame, but that doesn't mean they can't grow into something really big.<p>I guess time will tell, but best of luck to Makr.io. My only wish is that they share everything they must have learned through the process of Diaspora.

Questions on ownership:<p>1. Does Y Combinator then own a stake in their product Makr, or in Disapora?<p>2. When <i>Allerta</i> went from Waterloo Velocity's incubator to <i>inPulse</i> (at Y Combinator) and then <i>Pebble</i> (with Kickstarter's help), which pivot does Y Combinator have an ownership in? The parent company, or the new product?<p>3. Did everyday.me get accepted into the YC class, or Noodle Labs (makers of everyday.me) receive funding?<p>4. If you start an unrelated side project while you're there, is it seen as a pivot? And does YC have a claim in that?

The most confusing part about this is that they don't seem to acknowledge the disappointment that the public might have after reading this. Diaspora did such a good job of capturing people's imaginations, but did a terrible job of communicating about its shortcomings. This just seems to be a continuation of that.

If its a remixing place for memes, why not make them look like original memes? I don't like the font you chose to overlay since I'm so used to the ones currently on all the meme generators.

so bunch of youngsters abandon ideals and create yet another photo with a caption sharing site?<p>color me disappointed

Just curious, if any of the funds raised via Kickstarter for Diaspora were used in the development of Makr.io, including founders/developers salaries/expenses/etc.?<p>If yes, that is the biggest flaw of Kickstarter, no accountability. I can dream something really great, raise tons of cash via Kickstarter, and use that to do something else.

They have Login with Facebook. What can we say.

They should better focus on cleaning up D* code, solid federation and security (such as end to end encryption and etc.). Flashy UI is really secondary.

What's the point of this? Why would you even write an article on this?

Quick note to all the people who ask: "How is this site different from XYZ?"<p>Makrio may or may not be different from 4chan (some thoughts on that here <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4393668" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4393668</a>), but regardless, for many of us it might be the first service that actually works!<p>I don't like memes, I think they are stupid, and that's why I've never used 4chan or 9gag or cared much for the Cheeseburger network. But, with Makrio I actually have fun; something about it is different and it draws me in.<p>Before you dismiss the site as "just another X", give it a try for a few days, you just might like it!

What the internet truly needs right now is more image macros.

Slightly weird that they didn't actually link to <a href="http://makr.io" rel="nofollow">http://makr.io</a> once in the whole article?

While I don't mean to come down on Diaspora specifically, I feel like YC S12 is a decidedly weak class (at least what we've seen of it so far). When the online interior design site is one of the strongest offerings of the bunch, what can you really say?

The irony of this site using a facebook login is so thick you could swim in it.

Yet another Pinteresting UI. Disappointing.

Wow some of the comments here are brutal. Granted that the more recent YC graduates are not the most exciting it seems unnecessary to react with so much anger.

When I look at companies like SpotHero, who are trying to help people have a better (and cheaper) parking experience, I'm happy they're trying to help real people by solving real problems.<p>When I look at companies like Makr, I simply just wonder "why"? I'm unconvinced many people in "the real world" will use this or need to use this.<p>Am I missing something?

I guess all the hate stays here but judging by the explosion of programming memes, some hacker news people are having fun over there.

Wow.. I guess I am late to this thread. But have any haters here actually tried to use Makr at all? I second Koji - when you're not just passively watching, but contributing is when the real fun begins! You become part of a conversation, almost a little competitive fun to outdo your friends. Not something you will find in random cat picture sites.

This is a duplicate. Makr.io has been discussed here not too long ago and heavily criticized.

Why is distributed social apparently so hard that we couldn't buy it with $150,000?<p>Is sharing status really a lot more complicated than an RSS feed with public key encryption?

More insular, inward, bubble-bound myopic nonsense.