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New, exclusive and local social network launches Wednesday
By Steve Hendershot
(Crain's) -- Beginning tomorrow, you'll have a chance to join an exclusive club: the Chicago Social Network, powered by Chicago.com Inc.
As the name implies, it's a social network aimed at Chicagoans and based on the open-source Diaspora framework. Unlike Facebook, the network won't sell your data to advertisers (or include advertising at all), and you even can pack up your data and port it to other Diaspora-powered communities.
Just one catch: unlike Facebook, this new network isn't free. There's no subscription fee per se, but to join you need an @chicago.com email address — the other product offered by Chicago.com Inc.
Read all about it on Crain's blog for Chicago entrepreneurs.
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Steve Hendershot writes "Silicon City," Crain's weekly column on Chicago's tech news and newsmakers. Follow him on Twitter: @stevehendershot.
Follow Crain's small-business editor Ann Dwyer on Twitter, too: @AnnDwyer_Crains.
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Comments
We are efforting on skyscraper cloaking technology. It's more impressive than the Diaspora code, it really is. Better yet, we may even be able to figure out who Jim Stevenson -- "jim@jimco.com" really is...
Sorry to disappoint. Hopefully I'll make it up to you with a different post in the future!
Sorry you feel that way, Jim ... the launch of a social network is news and worth reporting, in my opinion. Whether it pans out -- and customers actually step up to pay for the service -- remains to be seen. In the meantime, some relatively high-profile people have already signed on. We'll be watching closely to see how it plays out.