Let me address each of his main points one by one.

(1) The average Internet user probably isn’t an active member of dozens of Web 2.0 services. While this may be difficult for some to believe, the truth is that most people don’t feel compelled to sign up for every new Web 2.0 service that launches. And quite frequently, users sign up for services that they eventually end up using very little. Data portability seems a lot less compelling when one recognizes that many, if not most, mainstream Internet users aren’t actively investing their time equally across a wide range of Web 2.0 services.

Actually you're wrong. Data Portability is not about 'Web 2.0' - it's about any web-based service. A typical user might use CNN, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, AIM, their cell phone and their PC or Laptop. That's a lot of apps. Imagine the possibilities of having them sync some aspects of your data.

(2) The average Internet user probably doesn’t need or want to take his friends along to every Web 2.0 service he or she signs up for. These services can be fun and entertaining, but the notion that every user wants to be able to import his data when signing up for a new one is asinine.

Really? I remember the same argument against Telephones, PCs and Cell phones. It's only asinine if you have a failure of imagination.

The point is not what users do today, but rather what is new applications and innovation are possible in an open data ecosystem.

(3) Privacy is just as important as openness. Where does my data end and yours begin? If you believe that users of Web 2.0 services have some inherent “right” to control their own data but that this data is in inexorably linked to the “social graph,” what “rights” do users have to control where “shared” data goes?

Openness is the wrong word. The DataPortability project does not refer to the 'Open Web' for a reason.

Privacy is also the wrong word. Privacy is too broad a term that has no actionable attributes. We need to focus on words that represent features for implementation. Features that achieve control. Words like Access controls and permissioning for example.

As for shared or derived data, the lines are being drawn and the issues are being debated. Just because it's hard to work out doesn't mean it's not worth trying.

Join me there! Using the code "zaph" will get you half price off ($495).

[slideshare id=614637&doc=cedricringenbachigniteportabilitereseaux-1222216798864797-8&w=425]

Il s'agit de présenter un sujet qui vous tient à coeur, sur lequel vous êtes expert, en 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 secondes par slide...

Quel sujet ? Tout simplement un sujet qui va intéresser les Geeks présents dans l'assemblée... On peut parler de technologie, de jeu, de science fiction...

Vous n'avez pas de sujet à présenter ? Venez au moins écouter les pitchs des autres. Ça promet d'être varié, intéressant, parfois techno, un peu geek, toujours très 2.0...

Pour ma part, je prépare un point sur la portabilité des réseaux sociaux aujourd'hui avec des exemples concrets (Mes slides ici au prochain post).

Toutes les infos sur cet événement ici.

Why would a vendor allow users to leave their service?

 

Why make it easy for users to take the preacious data you have about them and use it on other sites?

or...

What is the business justification for letting data walk out the door?

You spent a lot of time and energy to get users to sign up and give up their data right?

My answer always consists of a number of parts. There are a number of reasons why vendors should get involved in an open ecosystem of data interchange. User respect, reduced barrier to entry, reduced network fatigue and more.

Today, however, I'd like to focus on one particular reason why the value of Data Lockin is a myth.

Here is a diagram that represents the data you have about your user. 100%. Awesome right? You have a complete view of the proprietary data you have managed to collect about your user.

Have you ever considered, however, that your user's data actually looks like this?

Even if you are Google, and you know every search your users do, every document they write, every chat they have - you still don't know their facebook social graph. You don't know their tweet stream. You don't know the books they bought on Amazon.

Your view of your user's data pales in comparisson to their complete data set.

Not to mention the data you think you have is out-of-date weeks after you aquire it. Interests change, friends come and go, projects, assignments and jobs change and much, much more.

So, Data Portability is not about letting your users 'walk out' of your service. Data Portability is about enabling, empowering and encouraging your users to bring all their data with them, to connect your data to the rest of their data ecosystem and to continue to refresh and maintain the data on an ongoing basis.

The value of Data Lockin is a myth. Data Portability is an opportunity to have true visibility into a user's friends, interests, content and comments.

Are you thinking about joining the data web?

The problem is two fold. First, users do not understand why they need to provide a URI to log in. Second, users get confused by bouncing around to a 3rd party site.

I've given a lot of thought to this problem.

The only answer I've had so far is that while the OpenID user experience is difficult to explain to users who expect an email address and password log in, the data portability value proposition may help justify the added cognitive load for users and vendors.

It's probably true - but it's not a good enough answer.

More recently I've been thinking about another potential solution.

I believe the 3rd party site bounce is actually becoming common place. Passport, Facebook, Google use it and, as such, users are becoming more comfortable with it.

The question of using a URI as a 'username' however, is a more difficult pattern to explain to users at a login screen.

Mapping email addresses to OpenIDs

The purists among us will argue that identity should not be tied to messaging. That is, uniquely identifying people by email address is a bad idea. It encourages spam and other unhealthy activity.

Putting that aside for a moment, however, imagine this.

Rather than asking for a user's OpenID, ask them for their email address:

chris.saad@gmail.com

Now imagine the application refactoring the address on the fly to something like this:

http://gmail.com/chris.saad

The point here is that we take everything before the @ and place it after a slash. Remove the @ and put HTTP:// at the start and you end up with a well formed URI.

Now imagine that Gmail provided OpenID functionality for each email account in this way.

There are a number of challenges to pulling this off. Not the least of which is getting major email providers to support OpenID, and get existing OpenID consumers to refactor email addresses (if provided) on the fly.

It's certainly worth thinking about though.

Except from “Revolution of Me” - A book outline by Chris Saad

THE CHANGING WORKPLACE

JOB DESCRIPTIONS CHANGES

Remember when the PR, Sales and Support departments handled most of the external communication with customers? They always knew the right thing to say.

The problem now, however, is, the right thing, is not what customers and users want to hear. They want to hear the real thing.

If you write the code for your software company, then your users want to hear why you made the architecture decisions you made. They want to know why that bug occurred. They want to know what you think of the latest software innovation.

If you sing in a band, they want to know what inspires you. They want to know what it’s like living on the road – meeting other celebrities. They want to know about the emotional journey you’re on and how it informs your music.

If you’re an accountant they want to know what you think about new legislation proposals, new accounting practices, the latest accounting scandals and your ideas for corporate governance and account keeping.

And on it goes. For almost any job or industry you can think of, people want to have a personal connection with their service providers and they want honest, ongoing conversation.

You are no longer just the programmer, celebrity, accountant or knowledge worker. You are also the best person to speak with authority about your niche in the world. You are your own PR department. Except we don’t want to hear PR speak – we want you to listen, and we want you to hear our reply. We want a dialogue.

Blogs are the most obvious way these sorts of interactions are occurring; however there are also social networks, wikis, forums, newsgroups and more.

Add it to your Job Description. Clear it with the PR department. Make sure your boss knows. Read books about corporate blogging and the social media revolution. A good place to start is with the “Cluetrain Manifesto”, and then move onto “Naked Conversations”.

Read more on the wiki

Comments, ideas and contributions welcome!

J'ai passé une petite semaine d'autiste fin juillet comme j'aime à le faire une fois par an, n'ayant plus trop l'occasion de coder, et j'ai créé cette année FOAFDrive : http://www.foafdrive.com.

Une fois que j'aurais passé en revue divers sujets de b-a-ba du web2.0 j'aborderais un sujet de plus en plus en vogue ces derniers temps et qui est loin de se tarir : la portabilité des données (http://www.dataportability.org) et je parlerais alors plus en détail de FOAF.

Le principe de FOAF, dans ses grandes largeurs, est la création d'un réseau social décentralisé à la taille de l'Internet : en effet, pourquoi s'enregistrer sur une multitude de réseaux sociaux séparés les uns des autres alors que le seul, l'unique est finalement et simplement l'Internet lui-même.. ?

FOAFDrive vous aide, de manière, je l'espère, didactique, à créer votre propre fichier FOAF (cf http://www.foaf-project.org), il est entièrement (+95%) développé en Javascript et XML, il s'agit donc plus d'une application cliente tournant sur votre navigateur que d'un site Internet à proprement parler... Le formulaire principal est généré directement par analyse de la description FOAF RDF officielle et est donc à priori aisément évolutif et adaptable.

Le code est disponible au téléchargement, sous licence GPL, ainsi que le fichier de traduction si vous vous sentez l'âme traductrice.. ;) (Disponible en Français et en Anglais pour le moment)

Désolé pour le survol du sujet, ce post s'adresse principalement aux personnes qui connaissent déjà FOAF, ou tout du moins qui sont suffisamment motivées pour aller en chercher un peu plus sur le net, je reviendrais plus profondément sur le sujet plus tard.

N'hésitez pas à me faire vos commentaires, ils sont les bienvenus ! FOAFDrive va évoluer tout au long de cette année, doucement, avec des fonctionnalités intéressantes je pense.

I will be speaking on "Understanding the Basics of Personal Data: Vendors, Users, and You" - 09/18/2008 3:05pm - 3:55pm EDT Room: 1A06 &07.

Here's a $100 discount code if you're planning on going webny08mc23.

Hope to see you there!

In the mean time, I'm hanging out in the Bay Area.

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,

Cheers theme

Chris Saad has a great post about the personalisation of the web. It is a particular habit of old people to yearn for the "good old" days when you could walk into your local shop and be greeted by name. Or walk into your local pub and order your "usual" and even have it served in your own tankard. The good news for these people is that Web 3.0 promises not just to recreate this old world charm but also to surpass it.

One of the great things about reality is having a body. It's the ultimate unique identifier. It's also quite a handy social aggregator. Up until now we have really lacked a personal presence on the web. We've had the ability to create dispirate profiles but we've never had the chance to truly unify those profiles into a singular corporeal presence.

How will Web 3.0 surpass ye olde pub landlord?

The traditional pub landlord had to build up their knowledge about you over time. Bit by bit over the years they'd learn more and more about you. Web 3.0 promises to eliminate the need for this learning process. The minute you walk into the pub you will be able to share your entire history (drinking or otherwise). Before you even sit down the landlord will be pouring your favourite drink.

You'll also have the chance to share your network of friends with the landlord as well. "Hi Charlie. Hey, your friend John came in last week and had a pint of Old Peculiar and really enjoyed it." "Great. I'll try one as well."

You'll also be able to share everything you've read or watched or listened to. The landlord will put country on the jukebox, sport on the TV and ask if you'd like a packet of pork scratchings having just read Animal Farm that week.

In the web 2.0 world we've become sick of introducing ourselves over and over to all the different landlords. I want to be able to go to any pub and for them to always know my name. For many of us the Facebook Arms has become our local. The landlord knows us, all our other friends are there as well. The Facebook Arms is happy for other businesses to come in and sell their wares to its customers as long as they don't try take any of the information they get outside the pub.

I long for the day when I can drink at any pub. I'm sure I'll still pop into the Facebook Arms for old times sake.

As a co-founder of the DataPortability project, I'd like to be the first to welcome the Open Web Foundation to the conversation that was crystallized by the project early this year.

It seems like the foundation is well placed to provide a much needed level of oversight and legal protection for fledgling open standards. These standards will ultimately contribute to the 'data portability' vision of an inter-operable, standards-based web of data. In our investigations of the various standards, this has been a key concern for us and we feel encouraged people are stepping up to remove this potential roadblock. there is enormous value in getting more people involved in working towards a vision we all share, and for that reason I am genuinely excited by this development.

Two points to note however. I have always had concerns about using the term 'Open' when describing data - it sometimes invokes fears of a lack of privacy. Also, exclusive councils are somewhat of a dichotomy which don’t seem to be in keeping in dealing with 'open' technologies. Both these concerns, however, should not overshadow the value of a group of people working towards a vision we all share. For example I'd hope that the group is open to standards not developed by the founding individuals and companies.

We believe that governance is at the center of making these kinds of initiatives truly open and aligned with our shared visions of an open web. As such the DataPortability Project has ratified a radical new governance model that allows maximum participation while maintaining agility and accountability. This consolidates months of experience in managing a large, high-profile community, to go beyond a "benelovent dictatorship" or smoke filled rooms towards total transparency and community participation.

I have personally received a number of requests from other groups to learn from our model. With this in mind, I think there would be value in abstracting our governance model and providing it as a sort of 'open source' implementation of Roberts Rules for distributed, asynchronous groups that other global and transparent projects could use and contribute to.

Further, as per our governance framework, we have introduce a deliverable focused "Taskforce" model, whereby anyone in the community can create a Taskforce that fits with the goals of the DataPortability project to promote data portability in the community. Some Taskforces can be made official by the Steering group and will, as such, become responsible for official deliverables of the DataPortability Project.

So far a 'Vision' Taskforce has been created to describe our definition of 'Data Portability'. Also a 'Status Grid' Taskforce to develop and maintain a grid of vendor compliance with various open philosophies. This was inspired by Marc Canter at the Data Sharing Summit and will be lead by Daniela Barbosa. We expect a number of new Taskforces to spring up with the common goal of promoting data portability throughout the technical and mainstream communities.

It's exciting times for the web. We are watching the dawn of the data web emerge before our eyes, which is finally bringing together multiple efforts under simple memes to capture the attention of the mainstream. It will have as profound an impact on the world as the document web and social web before it.

I look forward to continuing the journey with all of you.

Otherwise track #fom08 on the various social networks.

From the magazine:

They collectively turnover hundreds of millions of dollars each year, yet some are barely out of university. They are proud to be Australian but see their home-grown success as little more than a stepping stone. They have never known serious recession, political instability or significant global conflict, yet they are better educated and better informed than new business owners of any generation preceding them. Meet the future of business in Australia.

...

Chris Saad
Age: 26
Location: Queensland
Company/Role: Faraday Media

At 26, Chris Saad is one of Australia’s most impressive young web entrepreneurs. His theory and practice around web standards – specifically “DataPortability” and “Attention Management” – have gained significant traction and are set to have a profound impact on the evolution of media in the digital age. Saad has co-founded several web-related companies and organisations, most prominently Faraday Media in 2006, of which he is CEO. Faraday Media is developing Particls, a technology that learns user habit and taste and delivers relevant information to them via news crawler, SMS, email, flash visualisations, etc. He also co-founded the Media 2.0 Workgroup with 14 industry “commentators, agitators and innovators”. There’s no shortage of ideas or energy in this digitally-minded entrepreneur. One to watch in the years to come.

Make sure you click through to the Article, subscribe to the mag and read the other 29 profiles!

Of course, singling out 30 'front men' does not really do justice to the real people who work tirelessly to make successful business happen. People like my business partner and co-founder who actually builds our Faraday Media products Ashley Angell. Like our investors, our team, our advisors and supporters who make everything possible.

To all of them and to our customers and partners - thank you for making this sort of thing possible.

I also look forward to clicking through to the other profiles and learning more about the other people listed - seems like a great group of Aussies!

Welcome to the discussion!

Perhaps it's time, though, to change that. Let me tell you a story.

I recently got a new job. I decided to "go new" on many things, including a new hairdo (it's swingy!). Then, I thought, "I know! I'll update my profile picture!" That's when I got irritated. See, I belong to... (counting, hang on)... well, damn. I have profiles that include my photo on these social sites:

• Jive Brewspace (internal deployment of Jive Clearspace)
• Jivespace (external deployment of Jive Clearspace Community for developers)
• Clearstep (another external deployment of Jive Clearspace Community for user adoption and other business practices)
• Wordpress
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Last.fm
• Picasa
• Twitter
• Friendfeed
• GTalk

Ask me how long it took to update my photo across all these sites. Now, think about how I also had to change my place of work, email address, maybe a mobile phone number, etc. Yeah. Now you understand the need for social data portability. But really, that's just the surface.

So, what's the data portability picture for the enterprise?

Data portability for the enterprise means blurring even more the lines between enterprise and consumer personal data, and more importantly, making folks more aware of who and what people know, both inside and outside the enterprise.

Let me explain.

Think about all the bits and pieces of your worklife, strewn about all those different systems: HR systems, skills databases, LDAP directories, employee whitepages, LinkedIn, etc. Wouldn't it be great if you could manage all that personal data from a single spot? It can live where it lives – I would call it data transparency, though, not data portability. This can already be accomplished by using data mapping tools in market today, but it takes some serious customization muscles to pull off, not to mention many lunches and cocktails to woo the czars in charge of all of those internal systems so they play nice.

At least with the consumer sites, this becomes easier when enterprise social software systems support data portability. For example, we announced today that we're supporting the DataPortability Project, alongside LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, and others. This means that, if you're using Jive Clearspace inside your enterprise, or Jive Clearspace Community in an external customer and/or business partner environment, your people will eventually be able to plop their LinkedIn or Facebook or other consumer profile information into their Clearspace profile, hopefully with ease and aplomb.

And then, think about all the relationships you've created, not only inside your organization, but on all those consumer sites. With everyone supporting the DataPortability Project, I'll be able to display (not port) all the people I'm connected to out of Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter, etc., in my intranet and extranet profiles. That way, my colleagues and customers can more easily see who I know, and more importantly, in what context I know them. Context is critical to understanding the nature of a given relationship. Without that understanding, it's kinda useless to know that I know someone.

Let's take this idea a step further: Why on earth would anyone I work with want to see who's music I listen to on last.fm? Because, those folks might actually be valuable contacts within a different context. And, my Jive colleagues might be able to begin a trusted relationship with them based solely on similar music tastes. This is a wonderful way to tap the voices of thousands over time, especially if creating innovative products is your thing.

Imagine what could eventually result from a conversation about how much two people love the Dixie Chicks, for example.

Now, to take this idea another step even further, read Sam's take on data portability.

]]> http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/?p=76 Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:48:49 +0000 Chris Saad http://chrissaad.pt-br.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/microsoft-is-going-to-release-a-web-based-version-of-office/ How? Using Silverlight.

Here's the strategy as I see it.

First, the underlying Silverlight technologies (XAML and .NET) are encouraging client-side Windows developers to think beyond boring forms apps and delve into the wonderful world of vector graphics with 3D, sliding reflective surfaces. In short, Microsoft is encouraging developers to use the power of the client-side to ensure that Windows apps to continue to make web-apps look like boring documents.

Second, having raised the bar on client-side user experiences, the Silverlight runtime enables developers to maintain that high bar of multimedia user experience in the browser. But Silverlight is not like flash. Developers can use the exact same development assets, metaphors and tools they know and love. Objects, Controls, Visual Studio and more. Users will come to expect web-based experiences that match their newly enhanced client-side ones.

Third, if Silverlight makes it possible to essentially deploy client-side style applications through the browser, which Microsoft product can now become truly web enabled?

You guessed it. Office.

Silverlight represents a way for Microsoft to not just complete in the online office space, but blow it out of the water with a product that is as good (or better) than its client-side counterpart. There was no way Microsoft was going to bet their web-based application strategy on Flash or try to hack together an Ajax word processor. Silverlight, and its true Object Orientated .NET foundation, are a perfect platform for the web-enablement of their traditionally client-side suite.

Fourth, Silverlight is positioned as the new application platform. It exists in places Microsoft has never existed before. On Nokia phones (the land of Symbian), Linux workstations and OSX. Even iPhone could conceivably run Silverlight since it runs the full fledged Safari browser. And now there is an announcement that Silverlight will be shipped with millions of HP computers.

With Silverlight now coming out on Nokia phones, delivered as part of the Olympics coverage and embedded throughout MS properties and content deals popping up everywhere, Microsoft is gaining enormous distribution potential. If they can somehow skirt the anti-trust issues, they could even bundle it with IE8.

Silverlight is a critical and masterful piece of technology and strategy from the Redmond giant. It allows them to leverage their tools and technologies from the client, raise the bar on web-based experiences, deploy their client-side apps through a browser and broaden their platform reach into every device and screen in a user's life.

I am speaking at Graphing Social Patterns. Will you be there?

You can use this discount code for a 20% discount: gspe08fos

Follow me on Twitter to work out where I am - hopefully we can catch up face-to-face.

Let me try to summarize the positions:

Marc Canter: At least the big social networks are doing something - and Facebook seems to give the user most privacy control.

Robert Scoble: When I give you my email address (or friend you) I have to assume that you are going to do whatever you want with it - including import it into other apps.

Michael Arrington: Facebook is behaving like old Microsoft and Marc Canter and DataPortability should demand better.

Me: Users need an additional check box when friending each other - 'You may move my data to other applications'. The big vendors are trying to keep control for as long as possible - that's to be expected. Startups, second tier social networks, non 'social networking' sites will ultimately implement first, and the big vendors will compete themselves towards open.

Over on Techcrunch Arrington claims:

"DataPortability founder Chris Saad was also on the call, but failed to take a leadership position in the debate (he did, however, weigh in with a blog post on the subject before the call). Their influence may be waning."

Mike, don't confuse and conflate a thoughtful position and long-term view as 'not taking a stand'.

So what options do vendors have? According to Mike Arrington, they can make announcements about Data Portability while fighting for control of your data, so that Data Portability is the new walled garden.

You can get a more concrete and interactive view of vendor options by playing the game hosted at ReadWriteWeb:

you can choose to play the role of any of 5 different players: Google, MySpace, Microsoft, the Data Portability Project, or Facebook. You can then predict what will happen, or voice your opinion about what should happen. Or both.

These players will no doubt make further moves next week. More then.

Debating Google's data portability move (Friend Connect) is like debating the Netvibes universal widget platform. It is not data portability in the sense that the DataPortability project has defined it. It is a platform that translates existing proprietary implementations into it's own unified proprietary implementation to enable social widgets to run in more places.

MySpace's data portability move (Data Availability) is actually the closest play to data portability as defined by the DataPortability project. It proposes to allow 3rd party sites to access the users personal data using open standards extracted from the page (using microformats and a collection of full XML standards). The terms and conditions about caching, however, also bring it in conflict with the philosophies of the DataPortability project.

So as stated before, none of these plays are true 'DataPortability' implementations. But they are important first steps. They are the first shots across the bow to the industry that a data portability battle is coming. In fact it has started. Are we going to let it shake out like the IM wars? Or are startups, second tier players, standards groups, bloggers and users going to rally around and standardize to a totally open, grass-roots alternative?

Are the big players going to evolve their offerings to come in line with the rest of the world, or are they going to try to dominate (read: lose).

Further, data portability, and DataPortability is not just about social networking data or social networking scenarios. Certainly not social networking as defined by the social contract of Facebook. It might even be true that Facebook is a culturally bad fit for the DataPortability ecosystem. DataPortability is about a different social contract - a contract more closely resembling the one found in the email address book.

My address book is my own. When you email me, or when you communicate with me, you are revealing something about yourself. You define a social contract with me that means that I can use your information to contact you whenever and however I like - I could even re-purpose my address book for all manor of other things.

If, however, you violate that trust, either directly or indirectly, you break the social contract and I will tend to not deal with you again. We can not perfectly engineer these sorts of contracts into systems - we can try, but in the end social behavior will be the last mile in enforcing user rights.

Also, the dichotomy between who 'owns' the data is false. In my mind there is shared ownership. While you use a service, it has a shared custodianship of the data. By giving the service your data you're getting something else in return - utility. In many cases free utility.

You personally, however, have shared (and overriding) ownership over your data. This has been declared as universally true by all the vendors I've spoken to.

The question is not one of ownership though, it's one of control. If you own your data but can't control it as you choose then ownership is a moot point. Further, the question is not one of if you own it, but rather how much of it you own.

For example, do you own your friends profile data since you have access to it via the social tool you are using? Or have they only granted you access within that social context and under that social contract. These considerations blur the analogy of the purely personal address book.

In this case, there is no correct, default answer. The answer must come from an old saying - "Your rights end where my rights begin". That is, your friends need an additional options when 'friending' you. A checkbox will probably be required that states 'Allow this contact to use my data elsewhere'.

The act of 'friending' will also need to take on more meaning and 'grouping' friends will become important. It will evolve, for most of us, and in most applications, from a popularity contest to a carefully curated address book of people we actually care about.

Needleman hit the nail on the head. He reports:

Within a matter of days, some of the biggest names on the Web announced new projects that all have a roughly similar aim of making it possible for Web users to have a single social-media identity across the Internet--"data portability," as the general term has come to be known. MySpace.com was first out of the gate with the announcement of Data Availability, a way for members of the News Corp.-owned social network to share their profile data with partner sites including eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter. The next day, Facebook launched Facebook Connect, an extension of its developer API so that third-party sites can incorporate Facebook authentication and user identities.

The Google-created Friend Connect, announced Monday, is a little bit different. With its goal of bringing the connectivity of the social Web to its less social online brethren, the project takes a cue from two much lower-profile social-networking strategies: MyBlogLog, a Yahoo-acquired widget manufacturer that lets readers of popular blogs socialize with one another; and Flux, launched by Viacom to provide interoperable social features to its own Web sites but open to other participants as well".

The Data Portability Workgroup, a consortium of techies working toward the common goal of translating identities from one social site to another, says this about data portability and the group's mission:

Mission: To Consult, Design, Educate and Advocate Interoperable Data Portability to Users, Developers and Vendors.
Definition: Data Portability is the option to use your personal data between trusted applications and vendors.

This is a worthy mission and a clear definition. Here's the rub: Any time you propose to set standards, all the big boys line up to say that they are in favor. Standards are good, like motherhood and apple pie. In fact, generous souls that they are, they'll take their internal standard, and "donate" it to the group, so everyone can adopt it. Of course, when MySpace, Facebook, and Google all want to have a unified standard [theirs],

Rafe says it well: "

One thing to keep in mind is that there's still time for all three of these projects to change and evolve before any Web users actually see them in action. Facebook is not yet at the point of releasing the technicalities of Facebook Connect other than the fact that it's an evolution of its existing API; MySpace's Data Availability is rolling out slowly with only a few launch partners. A general launch of Friend Connect, Google director of engineering David Glazer said, will take 'months.'

In the meantime, expect plenty of speculation, plenty of criticism of 'walled gardens,'and at least one claim that data portability is dead in the water before it's even taken off. This is tech blogging we're talking about--would you expect anything less?"

As I dinosaur who has seen nearly 40 years of arguments over standards, I would hold your breath for an immediate resolution to this problem, but hey, at least they are talking.

I am going to try to answer or comment on many of his comments below by quoting big chunks and including my ideas.

I obviously agree completely here.

It is clear with Chris' great post, that the data portability conversation, and the DataPortability project has unearthed a fantastic set of questions and opportunities.

The Data Portability narrative, and the resulting questions that it posses, are precisely the tools that will encourage end users, developers, vendors and media to further investigating popular standards like OpenID and Microfomats, and dig deeper into more nascent standards like RDF, XRDS and APML.

The resulting acceleration in just six months has been phenomenal - I look forward to the next six months.

I've written more on this subject in my "Internal note of thanks" post.

Each announcement has been a small and long-overdue step towards making social network profile data available to other sites in some sort of digestible way.

First, MySpace announced their 'Data Availability' push with a series of launch partners, and then, seemingly in response, Facebook announced 'Facebook Connect' which is an iteration on their existing APIs to allow 3rd parties to connect and access their user data.

Both moves have rightly been attributed as 'Data Portability' plays - but neither of them are true 'DataPortability' implementations... yet.

They are each proposing and implementing their own specific mechanisms, policies and technologies for moving the data around, and none of them are allowing true two way sync.

Over the coming months it will be our job, at the DataPortability project, to further refine and ratify the DataPortability Best Practices to provide a complete, end-to-end guide that Facebook, Myspace and others can follow. Once properly implemented, all applications on the web will essentially become part of a friction free inter-operable and two way data layer based on open standards.

It will be up to bloggers and other media outlets to keep the pressure on these players to continue to improve their offerings to achieve true compliance based on community recommendations made through the DataPortability project.

I look forward to the journey and further discussing these issues at the Internet Identity Workshop on Monday May 12 and the 2nd Data Sharing Summit on Thursday May 15.

My head is spinning. I can hardly keep up. In the latest news, according to Dave Morin at Facebook, is the announcement of Facebook Connect:

"Facebook Connect is the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to "connect" their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site. This will now enable third party websites to implement and offer even more features of Facebook Platform off of Facebook – similar to features available to third party applications today on Facebook."

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch writes:

"Facebook connect is Facebook’s first honest attempt to allow access to Facebook user data outside of Facebook itself. The company is describing it as giving third party applications access to much of the same data as Facebook applications have today. We’ll know more in a couple of weeks when it formally launches."

Like MySpace's announcement of yesterday, the general spirit sounds great and totally aligned with the data portability and open Social Web memes. But, of course, the devil may be in the details. Eager to connect with Dave to learn more and see what this means for sites like Plaxo Pulse.

This sure sounds great:

"These are just a few steps Facebook is taking to make the vision of data portability a reality for users worldwide. We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It's about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings."

Caroline McCarthy of CNET has a nice writeup with some insight into the backstory:

One Facebook insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said to CNET News.com that the project had been in the works for quite some time, and said the announcement wasn't issued as a response to MySpace's "Data Availability" project.

Update:

David Recordon of SixApart and the OpenID Foundation has an insightful writeup on the actual details of yesterday's MySpace announcement:

"After this announcement I had the pleasure of speaking with a reporter who was on the briefing call. He explained that MySpace said that due to their terms of service the participating sites (e.g. Twitter) would not be allowed to cache or store any of the profile information. In my mind this led to the Data Availability API being structured in one of two ways: 1) on each page load Twitter makes a request to MySpace fetching the protected profile information via OAuth to then display on their site or 2) Twitter includes JavaScript which the browser then uses to fill in the corresponding profile information when it renders the page. Either case is not an example of data portability no matter how you define the term!"

Indeed, the devil is in the details.