While I resist having a facebook profile (The choir I recently joined uses almost exclusively a facebook group to disseminate information to choir members, which is annoying), I have been interested in attempts to decentralize social networks since I backed Diaspora two years ago. I never made much use of my diaspora profile and I'm not exactly sure why; laziness perhaps. Recently two more efforts have come up, App.net and Tent.io. While App.net requires a $50/yr fee to use the service, Tent.is just came out with an alpha version with a free tier. I'm hopeful that something will come out of this, but I'm just curious if anyone else thinks they would use these services or even move to them.
I feel like tent.io might be great for me, perhaps using a pseudonym profile and a real name profile, but I'm not sure. Would it even be worth the effort if no one I know uses it? Is the value of a social network who you can connect to? Do people actually make new friends online using facebook and twitter?