Former MySpace Exec to Launch Facebook Competitor Altly

After everything you’ve invested in your Facebook profile, could you up and leave for a new site?

No? Well, a former MySpace executive is joining the ranks of people who want to give Mark Zuckerberg a run for his money with the implementation of new Facebook competitor Altly. Altly is up in pre-launch right now, and creator and former MySpace Music CTO Dmitry Shapiro has written an anti-Facebook manifesto setting his site apart. The sticking point? Privacy.

Yes, Altly plans to compete with Facebook on the basis of it spilling your business left right and center, all over the internet and to marketers, potential employers, and Raptor Jesus knows who else. Shapiro’s manifesto reads:

There is clearly nothing wrong with Facebook making money, as all business has to do. What IS clearly wrong is when our privacy, our personal information, our digital lives are being subjugated for the sake of profit, without us having any meaningful capability to opt out, or even know the extent of such activity.

Is there another option? What are our alternatives? If we don’t like what Facebook is doing, what can we do about it?

Well, herein lies the problem. There are NO serious alternatives at this time. For every Coke there is a Pepsi, for every Ford there is a Chevy, for every PC there is a Mac and for every Facebook there is…. a void! Facebook has such overwhelming power that practically no one believes that trying to build an alternative is possible.

Amusingly, over 2,000 people already “Like” Altly on Facebook. But given the number of startups hoping to siphon Facebook’s juice- and the fact that Facebook itself runs on crappy YouTube links and overshare- it’s kind of difficult to imagine it taking off on a large scale.

Will you be signing up to sign up later for Altly? Does the noob have a shot?