Founder of Open-Source Foe Facebook dies at 22
Ilya Zhitomirsky, one of the founders of Facebook-alternative Diaspora, died Saturday night at the age of 22.
Press Secretary Office of the San Francisco medical examiner has confirmed the death of Zhitomir on FoxNews.com, initially reported Sunday popular technology news blog TechCrunch. He could not confirm reports that a young man committed suicide.
Confirmation of the final cause of death could take weeks, he said.
Peter Schurman, a representative of the Diaspora, declined to comment on specific details, but acknowledged the death of Zhitomir. "We are very sad that Elijah died," Schurman said FoxNews.com.
New York University graduate struggled to run their own social network Diaspora - an open source social networking Zhitomirsky began to build with classmates Dan Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg and Raphael Sofaer early last year. Their goal was to provide alternative idealist Facebook with an emphasis on user control and privacy.
The team struggled with money, as he worked to make its website, despite rapidly raised $ 200,000 in funding through venture capital and microfinance Kickstarter run after the shows in New York Times.
But a blog post on the company's October 12 followers requested more money, the company claims that PayPal was "mysteriously and illegally" freeze donations to the site. PayPal reportedly released funds.
The founders of the site described the diaspora as a "distributed network, where a completely different computers connected to each other directly, will allow us to connect without surrendering our privacy." Last year they released the first version of the site for a limited audience.
Team effort even attracted the attention of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who donated money for the project. "I think it's cool people are trying to do it," he told Wired. "I see a little bit about yourself in them. It's just their attitude that the world could be better, and say:" We should try to do it. "
Friends and fans gathered at Twitter to mourn the death of a young entrepreneur.
"It's very sad #, I would also like to team @ joindiaspora force," said one fan.
"Shocked and deeply sad for the whole world that my friend @ zhitomirskiyi, co-founder of the Diaspora, is dead ... The world needs his voice," said Mozilla interface guru Aza Raskin
Press Secretary Office of the San Francisco medical examiner has confirmed the death of Zhitomir on FoxNews.com, initially reported Sunday popular technology news blog TechCrunch. He could not confirm reports that a young man committed suicide.
Confirmation of the final cause of death could take weeks, he said.
Peter Schurman, a representative of the Diaspora, declined to comment on specific details, but acknowledged the death of Zhitomir. "We are very sad that Elijah died," Schurman said FoxNews.com.
New York University graduate struggled to run their own social network Diaspora - an open source social networking Zhitomirsky began to build with classmates Dan Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg and Raphael Sofaer early last year. Their goal was to provide alternative idealist Facebook with an emphasis on user control and privacy.
The team struggled with money, as he worked to make its website, despite rapidly raised $ 200,000 in funding through venture capital and microfinance Kickstarter run after the shows in New York Times.
But a blog post on the company's October 12 followers requested more money, the company claims that PayPal was "mysteriously and illegally" freeze donations to the site. PayPal reportedly released funds.
The founders of the site described the diaspora as a "distributed network, where a completely different computers connected to each other directly, will allow us to connect without surrendering our privacy." Last year they released the first version of the site for a limited audience.
Team effort even attracted the attention of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who donated money for the project. "I think it's cool people are trying to do it," he told Wired. "I see a little bit about yourself in them. It's just their attitude that the world could be better, and say:" We should try to do it. "
Friends and fans gathered at Twitter to mourn the death of a young entrepreneur.
"It's very sad #, I would also like to team @ joindiaspora force," said one fan.
"Shocked and deeply sad for the whole world that my friend @ zhitomirskiyi, co-founder of the Diaspora, is dead ... The world needs his voice," said Mozilla interface guru Aza Raskin