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WordPress got into the social networking game by absorbing BuddyPress this month. BuddyPress is a WordPress plug in set that creates a social network out of a multiple user WordPress installation (WordPress MU). Adding BuddyPress to the WordPress family is a smart move on the part of WordPress to stay fresh and relevant.

In the meantime, people who have other, more valuable projects that have been ignored and fallen by the wayside in the great quest for something only the top ten percent of computer users want. One of the most vocal advocates for Data Portability is Chris Saad, the guy who brought us Particls - a great program. Or, it could be great, if his attention wasn't elsewhere, Twittering and blogging endlessly about Data Portability.

Social networks are becoming more open, more interconnected, and more distributed. Many of us in the web creation world are embracing and promoting web standards - both client-side and server-side. Microformats, standard apis, and open-source software are key building blocks of these technologies. This model can be described as having three sides/legs/arms/spokes - pick your connection: Information, Identity, and Interaction. DiSo (dee • zoh) is an umbrella project for a group of open source implementations of these distributed social networking concepts. or as Chris puts it: "to build a social network with its skin inside out". Our first target is Wordpress, bootstrapping on existing work and building out from there.

DataPortability.org is heading up a workgroup that will hopefully do just that. While many groups and companies are taking part in this effort, the recent addition of a few big name players has attracted a lot of attention.

WebProNews spoke with Chris Saad, the Co-Founder and Chairman of Data Portability.

The news today is that Microsoft intends to join the DataPortability Project. So where’s the beef? Why are long-time influentials from all these large vendors joining the cause? What are we offering? What are we trying to do? What’s in it for them? What do they bring to the table?

First, I’d like to clarify that DataPortability is not mine. It is an initiative that was co-founded by many people who all believed that something was missing from the existing Identity/Data/Standards landscape. Something very small, but very important.

With the announcement of Microsoft joining the DataPortability workgroup, the attention is on the blossom workgroup more than it has ever been before. Naturally with all the added attention (as if Facebook and Google joining wasn’t bad enough) there is a fresh new round of people questioning the validity of DP and its associated stack.

Let me make this perfectly clear: Dataportability does not give any more or less users access to your personal information than before. Now keep that single point in mind while I give a simple example.

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.

One. DataPortability.org is a volunteer, community project.

Two. DataPortability.org takes nothing for granted and does not adhere to any one gospel of portability.

Three. Warning — this is a PSA. Let’s stop demonizing PR and using “PR” in place of moron, lightweight or unproductive.