When the history of the coming-of-age of the Internet is written, May and June of 2008 may be remembered as the time when the tides turned and the industry finally realized and accepted the importance of data portability: The idea that the user, not the service provider, should have full ownership and control over the content that user generates.
It has been far too long since I’ve blogged here at Social Graph Theory, as my blogging energies have been more in tune with my day job. But I’ve been keeping up with the emerging social and open web (what I refer to as the Graph), and I’ll use this post to first recap all the commotion of the past few months regarding data portability in all its forms and definitions, and then I’ll propose a way of thinking about how to solve these problems that’s really a throwback to a lost era. Of course, a primer on data portability is necessary before diving into the hoopla that surrounds it, so this essay by Marshall Kilpatrick serves as a good introduction.
The Scream
Robert Scoble screamed. He screamed at the top of his lungs during a conference call with some cranky geeks, and then promptly took a shower to settle his nerves.
Scoble was on the May 16 edition of the Gillmor Gang podcast, recorded at a time when within a week of each other, MySpace Data Availability, Google Friend Connect, and Facebook Connect all launched. All efforts described ways for data to move around in a less restricted manner in and out of their respective services. Dare Obasanjo had the best technical roundup of the three platforms.
There was a sense that none of these solutions were nearly enough, and the discussion on the Gillmor Gang reflected this sense. It seemed that the companies were merely serving themselves, and not really doing what was best for their users. To add fuel to the fire, Facebook had just suspended their participation in Google’s Friend Connect for seemingly petty reasons, a controversy which again bubbled up just a few days ago.
The Aftermath
During that epic Gillmor Gang recording, much virtual blood was spilled, and the participants retreated to their blogs to formulate more concrete thoughts. Robert Scoble, Marc Canter, and DataPortability.org founder Chris Saad all had plenty to say.
There seems to be two paths options for those who want to see data portability: (1) Rely on the existing big companies like Facebook, MySpace, and Google to do the right thing, or (2) Participate in a grassroots effort that pushes the corporations to play nicely via the adoption open, neutral solutions and standards. Option #2 seems most plausible, and so many eyes have been watching the Data Portability Workgroup for leadership in this space.
But DataPortability.org’s founder Chris Saad has been criticized for not achieving any concrete victories in the half year of the workgroup’s existence. OpenID leader Scott Kveton left the Data Portability Workgroup earlier this month, citing Saad’s poor leadership and lack of focus.
The one project that seems most likely for success, is actually already succeeding with working code, and that’s the DiSo Project led by Chris Messina. By building working implementations (plugins to Wordpress and MovableType) of open standards (OpenID, OAuth, Microformats, et. al.), the DiSo Project has an emphasis on building real solutions rather that just talking.
The Future
The DiSO Project understands that technological innovation has always rode on the back of standards. AC electricity at 120V brought electrical appliances to every household and helped create a strong middle class. 8 bits in a byte was essential to computing. TCP/IP, HTTP, and XML are the key foundations of the Web.
Standards have been essential to progress since the age of Edison (and he lost the standards war of his day, yet history still views him quite favorably). Then in the mid 90’s, the entirety of the Internet industry seemed to have collectively thought, “We don’t need anymore standards”. They proceeded to build services (some awesome, some not so much), and forgot about forging standards to provide some foundation for the innovation they were doing.
That emphasis of services over standards leads us to the frustrations we face today. Since 1997, there really hasn’t been a truly game-changing, market-building standard to come about. The closest thing I can think of is RSS, but regular folks still don’t use it.
The work DiSo is doing by leveraging OpenID, OAuth, Atom, XMPP, et. al. to create an infrastructure based on open standards really is quite revolutionary considering what the industry has been like since the 90’s. But it’s essential, and it offers the best chance to achieve the goal of data portability: Users who truly control their own data.
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