TechMeme shows screen grabs of Diaspora

I invested in Diaspora via Kickstarter. I can hardly wait to try it. Students, pay attention to the way these kids raised money, and are bringing their ideas and convictions about privacy and social networking to life.

At first glance, this preview version of Diaspora looks sparse, but clean. Oddly enough, with its big pictures and stream, it doesn’t look unlike Apple’s new Ping music social network mixed with yes, Facebook. A few features they note:

* Share status messages and photos privately and in near real time with your friends through “aspects”.

* Friend people across the Internet no matter where Diaspora seed is located.

* Manage friends using “aspects”

* Upload of photos and albums

* All traffic is signed and encrypted (except photos, for now).

via Facebook Competitor Diaspora Revealed: Sparse, But Clean; Source Code Released.