Sunday, November 30, 2008

Biggest Battle Yet For Social Networks...Data...

I recently responded to a great article by Mike Arrington over at TechCrunch: Biggest Battle Yet For Social Networks: You, Your Identity And Your Data On The Open Web (the full article is here).

My response:

This continues a trend of distributed consolidation. After all, just how many different networks can one possibly join that actually have meaning and engagement? And of them, how many times must one reenter their social graph?

This distributed world is changing in a big way and the standard bearer is data portability. Many of the big guys would rather not have it, but the momentum is forcing them to play. If they can’t beat them – then at least they’d like to be in the center of it all. A serious lands-grab is going on right now and the players include all the big guys and more than a few up-and-comers. Time will tell how it all shakes out, but it all potentially spells good news for users.

In any case, now is not the time to sit on the sidelines. Register your opinion. Be an activist. Let your service providers know what is ok and what is not. Infuence your world!

[Mr. Repetti is the CEO/CTO of RadWebTech.com and a member of the board of the International DataPortability organization (www.dataportability.org). Expressions made herein are made individually]

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