Google and Facebook Join DataPortability.org

technirvana sends us to ReadWriteWeb for the scoop on the announcement this morning that representatives from Google and Facebook are joining the DataPortability Workgroup. Quoting: "The group is working on a variety of projects to foster an era in which users can take their data from the websites they use to reuse elsewhere... Good bye customer lock-in, hello to new privacy challenges. If things go right, today could be a very important day in the history of the internet. The non-participation of Google and Facebook, two companies that hold more user data and do more with it than almost any other consumer service on the market, was the biggest stumbling block to the viability of the project. These are two of the most important companies in recent history — what's being decided now is whether they will be walled-garden, data-horders or truly open platforms tied into a larger ecosystem of innovation with respect for user rights and sensible policies about data."

Oh, please...

"Walled-garden, data horders"???

Nothing like emotional polarization rather than rational discussion. Is the poster running for president or something?

Downsides and upsides

Despite the obvious gold treasure room that has now been created for spammers, hackers etc. etc., I look forward to this. It'll be nice being able to use a universal account online. It will be interesting as well, as I think we'll see more and more that people are going to be known by their avatars rather than their actual name as data becomes universal like this.

Re:Downsides and upsides

I would like a system where the servers and services using the system doesn't actually have access to YOUR information, but rather has access to links to your information. That information would, in turn, be controlled by the owner of that information. Such a system would be truly opt-in creating a marketing system that people could truly opt-out of. It would also be immeasurably more valuable to marketers as the information would have a higher quality of demographic selection along with more guaranteed delivery of content.

If such a system were to catch on, we'd be a lot closer to the end of spam and similar marketing practices. I can't imagine we'd be rid of it entirely, but wouldn't it be nice?

Re:Downsides and upsides

> I think we'll see more and more that people are going to be known by their avatars rather than their actual name as data becomes universal like this.

What's funny is that I go out of my way to make sure my avatar is unknown, in the sense that there is no tie with my real name in any way, on any website/forum/whatever. If you google my avatar, all you find is which websites I used that avatar, and what I posted using that avatar, but nothing else about me. In fact, I even switch avatars; one avatar for different websites.

The threat I see from this is the potential that you cannot avoid having your real name linked to your avatar's... or you would have to go out of your way to maintain explicitly seperate online persona's: one for your actual name, and one for every avatar you choose!

why not do something right now?

Most of the data people want to move around has obvious formats, and where there aren't obvious formats, the first people to do something reasonable get to set the standard. What are some of the things Google and Facebook can do right now?

There are commonly used formats for contact info, addresses, appointments, todo lists, notes, and bookmarks. For images, Google could offer downloading of a zip of an album or all albums. For documents and document backup, Google could offer downloading of a zip of a folder or the entire collection. Mail can be backed up via IMAP pretty well, but a zipped mbox file might also be nice. For information in search results and other web pages, Google could use microformats.

So, talk if you like, but these companies can do a lot better than they are doing right now without waiting for some grand standard or consensus.

Amazon? Choice of Information Sharing?

Does Amazon participate in this? They hold a ton of personal data whenever I make a purchase from them. Hell, whenever I sign into their site they keep track of all the items I have ever viewed.

It seems that there are so many ways for a website to get *my* data.

(a) personal data supplied (forms on their site that I fill in),
(b) friend data supplied (form on their site that my friend fills in),
(c) browsing data semi-supplied (pages on their site that I look at),
(d) 3rd party supplied data, (forms on other sites that I filled in)

If all of these data sources cannot be controlled by the end user (what gets aggregated where)... then I am going to have to find myself another Internet.

And yes, I don't like that Facebook gets personal data from 3rd Party Sites unless I specifically say they can (i.e. "Go Search Gmail for New Contacts to Add"). LinkedIn (I believe) does this search without asking you.

Facebook sock-puppetry?

"Google and Facebook, two companies that hold more user data and do more with it than almost any other consumer service on the market..."

and

"These are two of the most important companies in recent history"

TWO? No. Not even close. Google sure -- they have lots of user data and are surely important in the recent history of the Web. But Facebook isn't even the biggest in its own field. Love it or hate it, Myspace still has many, many more users and much more influence. They may still be drowning in OMG Ponies!!!1! glitter, but they have the backing of one of the worlds biggest (and scariest) media empires.

Facebook is in all likelihood little more than a fad. They're not ground breaking, nor especially innovative, they are not leaders in their field (unless, maybe, you could user protest and rebellion figures).

Thus, my conclusion is that this "article" was brought to you (at least indirectly) by the Marketing Droids over at Facebook.

That said, the principle of portable data and removal of proprietary walled gardens is certainly a good thing.

Re:Facebook sock-puppetry?

Facebook is in all likelihood little more than a fad. They're not ground breaking, nor especially innovative, they are not leaders in their field (unless, maybe, you could user protest and rebellion figures).

Microsoft aren't ground-breaking or especially innovative, but they seem to have done alright.

Being successful isn't about being innovative and coming up with new products - it's about earning more revenue than your competition by (hopefully) providing a better service.

I think, for the moment, the quality of data available to marketers is much better on Facebook than on Myspace. It therefore seems Facebook is likely to continue to grow - as the amount of advertising dollars flowing in likewise grows.

Notice how many people put albums of photos on Facebook, compared to Myspace - it's a good indicator of whether they will stay with the service. What I've noticed is that people generally can't be bothered switching if it means going through all the hassle of setting up their photos again, even if they're prepared to set up their 'friend list' or whatever again.

Re:Facebook sock-puppetry?

Notice how many people put albums of photos on Facebook, compared to Myspace - it's a good indicator of whether they will stay with the service.

Are you confusing Facebook with Flickr or Picasa? Facebook runs a Java program that spends ten minutes converting my beautiful hi-res photos to postage stamps. The results are pathetic! 50meg in 2meg out.

If you pay attention you will notice that Facebook doesn't do any heavy lifting on their servers. They leave that to the ap writers, and even so, the service was grinding to a halt in December. They'll have to reinvent their infrastructure to scale and by then the world will be bored with their walled garden.

I think Facebook joining this group is too little too late. Let's see them actually make some content exportable (not that I want my postage stamp pictures back or anything).

On the other hand, nothing is new about Google joining this group. Everything is Google is exportable right now. they are already walking the walk, while Facebook is just talking the talk (and running in the other direction).

Let me fix that summary for you ..

Google and Facebook join forces to sell your data for money.

Data Alliance

I don't think TFA is being fair in its language when describing the possibilities of the DataPortability Workgroup becoming "walled-garden data-horders" or "truly open platforms". It somehow implies that the Alliance is more capable of governing the organization in a way that allows for an open trading of information. I'll let them know that our use of the Goblin Zeppelin technology is much more cost-effective and flexible than their under-ground tram system between Stormwind and Ironforge.

Oh, they meant data-hoArders?

Concerned Blood Elf
Silvermoon City
Quel'Thalas

I'm reminded of Mark Pilgrim.

As Mark Pilgrim said [diveintomark.org], "Praising companies for providing APIs to get your own data out is like praising auto companies for not filling your airbags with gravel." It's depressing that this isn't all a given.

Facebook, Plaxo at odds over data portability

Has anyone read "The Scoble scuffle: Facebook, Plaxo at odds over data portability" (http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9839474-36.html [news.com]); why would Facebook join this, if they are doing something else like in the aforementioned story which I think you should all read!

hehe

It's easy to advocate open data standards when you believe it will allow hordes of new customers to abandon your competitors offerings and flock to your products.

Actually, this is probably why MS does not go for them.  If they really believed in the quality of their products, they would be a sincere advocate of open standards.

Nice presentation on the subject

I know this is a bit old, but Dick Hardt's presentation at OSCON 2005 [identity20.com] is well worth checking out - and seemingly just as relevant today.

Bonus points for the "Lawrence Lessig" presentation style too... :-)

Not to be pedantic, but...

... does this mean that if I'm on Orkut, I'll be able to add a friend whose on Facebook, and interact with them flawlessly? If not, then this is just a distraction to what social networking should look like [sourceforge.net].

Re:Solve the address book tower of babel

you're kidding right? Microsoft would never have that.

Re:Solve the address book tower of babel

Wait there. To be fair you can export data from Outlook. Outlook will let you export your address book, mail and calendar, Google will not. Google will let you download all of your mail, but there is nothing for exporting your address book. (And to be fair, you really don't have a Google address book do you? It just caches the names of everyone and uses an autocomplete feature to make it feel like you do.)

I keep a Google Calendar for personal stuff and one in Outlook at work for scheduled meetings and so forth (Fortune 500, so I can't just tell everyone I'm not going to use Outlook anymore). Once I decided to export my Outlook calendar and import it into Google's so I could see my upcoming meetings from home later that day and plan my next month's schedule. Worked great, no problem at all. Then about a week later I decided to do the same thing backwards, export from Google and load that data into Outlook. Well, Google offers no such feature. I *could* "share" my personal calendar (give it an address that anyone can view) and import it that way, but I don't like the idea of making my calendar viewable to the world while I do the import.

And this is coming from a Google fan who has four Google related Firefox Prizm icons on his desktop (Gmail, Calendar, Reader and Docs).

Re:Solve the address book tower of babel

Want to use Outlook? Good luck sharing your address book with Gmail or (hah) Thunderbird

Gosh, I must be extremely lucky; I typed "export contacts" in Outlook help, and, what do you know, I got a link to an article helpfully named "Transfer contacts between Outlook and Google Gmail". Just export your Outlook contact list as a CSV file and import it into GMail. Trivial.