Spinfield: Web marketing trends today, tomorrow, and beyond…

Data portability allows users to move their personal data between systems, creating a more social Web experience. In November of 2007, the Data Portability Project was established to promote this capability. Their mission is “To Consult, Design, Educate and Advocate Interoperable Data Portability to Users, Developers and Vendors.” By January of 2008 many major players became involved with the project, including Google, Facebook, Plaxo, Twitter, and Microsoft.

Earlier this month Google released in beta Google Friend Connect, their venture into data portability. Friend Connect allows site owners to socialize their website, and add other applications, such as message boards and picture sharing, without having to write code. Gadgets are provided by both Google and OpenSocial developers.

With Google Friend Connect users can share their activity information and invite friends from other social networks to join, such as Orkut, hi5, Google Talk, and Plaxo. Initially this functionality was offered for Facebook as well, however Facebook blocked Google’s Friend Connect, stating that it violates Facebook’s terms of service.

Google is not the only big player getting into data portability this month either. Facebook also has released their own version of data portability, Facebook Connect, and MySpace released MySpace “Data Availability”, partnering with Yahoo, Ebay, Twitter, and Photobucket to allow users to share data between these sites.

With so many players involved, the future of Data Portability remains to be seen. For more information on Data Portability be sure to check out this Podcast from ReadWriteTalk. The episode is an interview with Chris Saad, the co-founder of The Data Portability Project. Also for the latest in regards to the Data Portability Project, be sure to check out their blog.

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