If you are anything like me (which I hope for your sake you’re not), you’ll be constantly tripping over the names of new data portability initiatives concerned with exchanging social information. Combine any of the following words and create a new name [‘Open’, ‘Social’, ‘Contacts’, ‘Data’, ‘ID’], I checked all the domains and guess what? They’re all taken. (No shit, Sherlock)
I thought it would be helpful to list these initiatives and provide a quick comparison of what they do and why they exist. This is my current understanding of the various players. Please comment and correct me where I’m wrong or have omitted important initiatives.