Diaspora founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy, dead at 22.

Before Google+ positioned itself as the mass-market Facebook alternative, there was an early anti-Facebook.  One of the first social networks to splinter away from Facebook, citing privacy concerns, was Diaspora.  Founded a year ago amid massive Facebook backlash regarding several privacy failures and data leaks, Diaspora was supposed to be the private person’s Facebook, though it had its problems.  Its problems continue as Diaspora founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy was found dead in San Francisco at age 22.

“We’ll all miss Ilya more than we can say.  Ilya was a great friend and a brilliant person, a visionary whose work for a better future online brought hope to many people,” said Peter Shurman.  Shurman and Zhitomirskiy were two of four New York students who founded Diaspora.

Diaspora was launched as a Facebook alternative for the privacy conscious, though the site had many security bugs upon launch.  Interestingly, one of the site’s earliest investors was, you guessed it, Facebook founder and multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.

Tags: Ilya Zhitomirskiy, Diaspora, Diaspora Facebook, Diaspora founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy found dead,  Ilya Zhitomirskiy dead at 22, obituaries, social networks, open-sourced social networks, Facebook rivals, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Shurman, San Francisco, California

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