DataPortability

XRDS-Simple provides a format and workflow for the discovery of resources metadata, and other linked resources. As web services continue to grow, applications utilize a wider range of web services and resources across multiple providers. XRDS-Simple allows providers to document their resources in a machine-readable way, which can be automatically discovered by consumer applications.

Gartner analysts at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas discussed what they believe will be the most disruptive technologies through 2012. Disruptive technologies are those that force changes in industry models, business processes, vendor types, products and services, as well as the all-important user model. Take a look at this list and tell us whether you think something has been omitted—or just plain doesn't belong. This list is ranked in order from least disruptive to most disruptive.

As an example, the Dataportability movement has framed the problem in terms of Data and Portability. This brings to mind exporting and importing “my” data from vendor to vendor. That’s a start toward liberating users from vendor silos. However, I think the real win is in user-centric services, where the location of the “data” is essentially irrelevant–even as it is hosted under the control of the user–and all user-authorized vendors can access the data through approved services.

Early adopters of the Web rolled up their sleeves to demonstrate what was possible on their own sites (even before animated gifs came along), so perhaps advocates of things like the Web of Data, opening the social graph and DataPortability should begin at home too…

At Mahalo we just rolled out rolled out Microformats for relevant search result pages. So what does this mean, and what are Microformats? Well, they are data classes that help machines and people identify and export information. Data such as contacts and address information is much easier to manage, search engines can also better catalog the info. Yes a little bit of the semantic web of tomorrow….today!

if you're familiar with XFN think of findmeon like this: findmeon can let your 'xfn rel="me"' items be anchored to a digital signature. you can then either publish the public key, so that everyone knows for sure that those xfn relations are legit and not spoofed-- or you can not publish the key and have multiple circles/networks of 'xfn rel="me"' documents which are only brought together when someone is provided with a shared public key.

MOAT Server is a application that serves tag meanings (in HTML, JSON or RDF/XML, using content negociation) for any Tag you request. The server is shipped without any data, which means that users have first to define meanings for their tags (thanks to the clients they use, that will then update the server information) to efficiently use it, using data available on the Semantic Web, especially from the Linked Data initiative.

Existing participatory systems are designed to separately invite online user contributions in one capacity, and to aggregate collective value in another, but few environments attempt to holistically address the production of useful outcomes by moving participation towards meaningful and intelligent results. This determined focus on how best to design participatory environments to solve problems is particularly relevant given the world’s abundance of complex and urgent problems to be addressed. Methods for solving them collectively online have only begun to be explored.

MySpace is essentially making key user data, including (1) Publicly available basic profile information, (2) MySpace photos, (3) MySpaceTV videos, and (4) friend networks, available to partners via their (previousy internal) RESTful API, along with user authentication via OAuth.

The bigger downside of Friend Connect is that Websites using it cannot mash up the data with their own to make compelling new applications. Glazer confirmed that the data will be sent to third party sites via an iframe rather than directly through a set of APIs (as Michael speculated on Friday). However, Glazer also says that he wouldn’t be surprised if eventually Google or somebody else makes it possible for Websites to combine the Friend Connect data with their own.

This paper sets out to describe a version of infrastructure or foundation for VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) based on an alternative view on sharing information online between individuals and of online identity. It sets out to explain the strategy and tactics for design, development and adoption of tools - the Mine! and FeedMe (see glossary) - and creation of an infrastructure for other solutions - VRM (relationships with individuals and vendors, transactions), self-defined identity, authentication, data portability and hopefully many more. The aim is to equip individuals with tools to take charge of their data (content, relationships, transactions, knowledge), arrange (analyse, manipulate, combine, mash-up) them according to their needs and preferences and share them on their own terms whilst connected and networked on the web.

The scuffle today between Facebook and Google has very little to do with user privacy and everything to do with user control. A huge battle is underway between Google, MySpace and Facebook around control of user profiles and, therefore, users themselves. And their three new products, Data Availability, Facebook Connect, and Friend Connect, are all designed to further that goal.

Ultimately I hope that I can keep my identity, friend list, photographs, videos and everything else that constitutes the (de)Centralized Me at any service provider that I trust (meaning I trust them to protect that data, but never go against my wishes and try to keep it to themselves if that isn’t what I want), and just tell sites like Facebook and everyone else where to grab it.

Would a service like Matchmine fall prey to Strands’ do-it-yourself approach to providing specific ways in which individuals can use their own data portability information? Not likely. Data portability, even with the help of Strands, will still take some time to permeate online social media. And services like Matchmine will continue to evolve, and will likely find peripheral ways in which to further monetize the underlying social behavior that goes into the very use cases towards which data portability will be applied.

Chris Saad, cofounder and chair of the nonprofit ­DataPortability Project, notes that many current methods of transferring data expose users to huge security risks. For example, it's a common practice for social sites to ask users to submit the usernames and passwords for their Web-based e-mail accounts when they first sign up; an automated service can then search the network for people listed in their address books. "The door is open right now for any application that scrapes your Gmail address book to go ahead and scrape your shopping cart as well, or scrape your searches, or keep your username and password and pretend to be you," says Saad. "It's a nightmare of security, and it's something we need to solve sooner rather than later."

Data Availability supports the OpenSocial REST specification for the Person resource for retrieving the user’s data and the friends of the user.

MySpace and Google demonstrated an interesting mashup of the MySpace Data Availability API, oAuth and the iGoogle gadget specification at the oAuth Summit a couple of weeks ago. The application, which pulls the core MySpace feature set into iGoogle, is not yet publicly available, although MySpace has said to expect in in August.

Liberty ID-WSF People Service Specification

Defines a secure, privacy-respecting access service by one user to another's identity information.

autonomo.us is an independent group of hackers, activists, and scholars exploring the ideas of user freedom and autonomy as they relate to network communication technologies.

What are the elements of a VRM data portability policy? The basic elements of a VRM data portability policy should include: Data retention agreement - How long will my data be retained for? For example - for the life of the relationship plus 30 days. Data reuse agreement - Will my data be used for purposes beyond the original transaction Data ownership agreement - What elements of the data belong to the vendor such as a Frequent Flyer number Data portability agreement - The data that is the subject of the agreement may be stored by the vendor, or it may be held by a data custodian in a Personal Data Store. Data access agreement - The data that is the subject, or a sub-set, of the agreement should be accessible to third parties that have been granted access by the user. For example, granting access to my shipping address information at Amazon by a third party vendor I have performed a transaction with.

Data Portability and Cloud Ownership Posted July 21st, 2008 by Ross Fadner turn_ad_publisher = 2919766;turn_ad_publisher_ad_code = 2919800;turn_ad_layout = "300x250";turn_ad_publisher_channel = 2919778;turn_ad_manual_id = 24759350;<img height="1" width="1" border="0" src="http://ad.turn.com/r/error?errMsg=noiframe&adUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fad.turn.com%2Fserver%2Fads.htm%3F%26pub%3D2919766%26code%3D2919800%26cch%3D2919778%26l%3D300x250%26tmz%3D4%26area%3D1%26rnd%3D0.19900853499693383%26lmd%3D1216835834%26aid%3D24759350%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.mediapost.com%252Fblogs%252Fraw%252F%253Fp%253D671%26ref%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.mediapost.com%252Fblogs%252Fraw%252F%253Fcat%253D16"/> In describing the state of the data portability movement, Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps, said, “we now have a situation where major Web players are vying to be the cloud—to provide the underlying technology for social graph data.” Blum duly noted that the idea scares both publishers and audiences, but Parity CEO Paul Trevithick, for one, doesn’t seem to think the Big Brother pretensions of the likes of Google are a foregone conclusion. “The point is architectural,” he said. “Facebook would say it should be us (that should be the gatekeeper of users’ data), but data goes in and doesn’t come out.” Instead, he said that, “people, themselves, as sovereign entities, should have the control.” This is the idea behind data portability: that users control their own data, and that that data is portable; i.e. it exists in many places without belonging to any of those places. As such, Trevithick said data portability would help bring about an Internet of the future where you don’t have to repeat yourself, because your data would exist in cloud that’s accessible whenever and wherever you go online.