Diaspora Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy: Dead at 22 by Suicide

Ilya Zhitomirskiy has died, according to San Francisco Police reports obtained by aNewDomain. Authorities, who did not report cause of death this weekend, now say the Diaspora cofounder, 22, committed suicide.

Zhitomiriskiy was one of four founders of Diaspora. It’s billed as a it as an open-source alternative to Facebook. Zhitomirskiy posted the last tweet to his account on October 19.

His Twitter feed is below. I cut Zhitomirskiy’s posts out of respect for the deceased and his colleagues, friends and family.

Zhitomirskiy was a student at New York University when he teamed up with fellow NYU students Dan Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg and Raphael Sofaer. Their goal: To develop a better, more flexible and more private social network, a true alternative to Facebook. The four raised some money from a super angel (Kickstarter, I’ve confirmed) and the firm has been promoting Diaspora like crazy all year.

The four cofounders took part in a video interview at Web 2.0 in New York last year.