by Brian Solis
This could very well be the first BIG story of 2008 as it’s sure not only impact this year, but also years to come.
As you may or may not know, recently the tech set were up in arms over the ScobleGate controversy because Robert Scoble’s Facebook account was temporarily suspended due to a Beta Plaxo service he was testing that scraped contact information and exported it from Facebook into Plaxo.
In my post, I predicted that data would become portable as people realized that soon after the honeymoon ends with every new, popular and shiny social network, that there’s inherent value (on every side) to leveraging and cultivating those relationships across multiple networks – without having to recreate them each and every time.
In today’s big news, Chris Saad announced the inclusion of Joseph Smarr (Plaxo), Brad Fitzpatrick (Google) and Benjamin Ling (Facebook) to the DataPortability Workgroup.
According to Saad, “Their joint support of the DataPortability initiative presents a new opportunity for the next generation of software – particularly in the fields of social software, user rights and interoperability. The DataPortability Workgroup is…actively working to create the ‘DataPortability Reference Design’ to document the best practices for integrating existing open standards and protocols for maximum interoperability. This means users will be able to access their friends and media across all the applications, social networking sites and widgets that implement the design into their systems.”
Marshall Kirkpatrick over at Read/Write Web offered one of the best analysis of the news, “If these industry titans can put aside their rivalry and work together – magic could happen. Hopefully they can work appropriately with the other members of the working group, bleeding edge consultants and representatives of smaller and in many cases more user-centric companies. If so, perhaps we can move appropriately into a future of powerful personalization and logically augmented activity online – while avoiding Minority Report-style dystopian scenarios.”
Pushing back, pushes things forward…in a good way. I believe there are important opportunities to enhance the user experience while creating greater monetizable value to empowering users rather than virtually imprisoning them.
Once the social graph is truly portable, then people can leverage the cultures and relationships across multiple networks to stay connected more seamlessly. That’s the power and promise of social media and in turn, the social graph.
Update: Read Dennis Howlett’s opposite view on why DataPortability.org is stillborn, “In all the talk I’ve seen, I’ve not heard a single word that seeks to address this issue. Instead we have a group of self-interested people, blinded by their own evangelical zeal. That’s dangerous. The digital socialist cry of ‘We the people’ may work in some markets but it doesn’t work in law. That’s why this initiative with all its good intention is effectively stillborn.”
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Discussion
Hi Brian i agree this is a big one!
It is great to see support from the big players. In addition to the users benefiting- companies (big and small) will have a set of established standards to look to as they implement new ways to leverage social networking as part of their strategies.
Big indeed. Thanks for sharing.
As the internet continues to expand I think that these are the types of products that will really do well – those that make online life easier. Tons of whitespace.
Hello everybody, my name is Damion, and I’m glad to join your conmunity,
and wish to assit as far as possible.