When faced with competition, most of us would get our defenses up and carefully eye our new rivals from a distance, secretly hoping for a massive failure on their part. Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg may be an example for us all in the way he embraces his possible competitors.
The Diaspora project, being worked on by four NYU students, is to be an open alternative to the social media giant Facebook that includes a way for people to run their own servers. Instead of turning a blind eye, Zuckerberg actually donated money to the new project; adding to the $190,000 the students had already raised.
Why? “I think it is a cool idea,” says Zuckerberg. “I think it is cool people are trying to do it. I see a little of myself in them. It’s just their approach that the world could be better and saying, ‘We should try to do it.’”
Of course, it could also be a massive PR stunt by Zuckerberg in hopes of winning back public opinion after this whole privacy predicament Facebook has gotten itself into.
Source: Wired
