MediaVidea

Useless word of the day: Data Portability

Reading this in the otherwise dull Readwriteweb blog, I had a mini-fit upon reading these fanboy-worthy words about recent developments regarding something called Data Portability:

If these industry titans can put aside their rivalry and work together - magic could happen.

I double checked whether I was on the right blog and not on some mainstream media site, where tech articles are exercises in Rabid Puffery.

To the uninitiated, Data Portability is the possibility of users being able to 'access their friends and media across all the applications, social networking sites and widgets that implement the design into their systems.'

Mobile Number Portability is more interesting and has its uses.

Apparently Google, Facebook and Plaxo have come together to work on sharing data and modifying the walled gardens in future.

They had me with 'End of walled gardens'.

On the business side of it, I don't suppose each party will assign equal importance to each other's data. For example, some Facebook profiles will be useful for Google (e.g. the students) and Facebook will like Gmail's data - in either case, I don't think it is going be a cake walk for any of the parties involved.

For a long time, Google, Facebook and Plaxo (and all who join later) will squabble over 'who's data is worthiest' , trying to pouch whatever advantage is to be had, before one of bigger player breaks away.

This heralds the beginning of the machines' takeover: the idea of Facebook going for my Google profile, the files stored in Gmail, and my ego surfing history makes me rethink dinner.

The age of machines is upon us and it wants all my data under one roof.

Labels: facebook, future, google, trends, web 2.0

posted by Pramit Singh @ 4:39 PM