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  • Author unknown

    Marcs Voice

    http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2008/05/the-people-united...
    201 days ago in Marc’s Voice · Authority: 287

    As some people are astutely pointing out, humans have been moving their data around for years. And whether Facebook likes it or not, its gonna happen. And now we're hearing about other products and other ways to get at your data. This can't be stopped.

  • Author unknown

    Is this about data or money?

    http://feedonomics.grazr.com/index.php/archives/456
    200 days ago in Feedonomics · Authority: 20

    Is this about data or money? May 18th, 2008 by Adam Green Marc Canter frames the data portability debate as a power to the people struggle. I agree that the data is already out there, but after we take it to the streets who will provide the solution? Is

  • Author unknown

    Data portability, the Potter parable, 21st century demand mechanics, and zombie attacks

    http://therestlessmind.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/data-portabi...
    198 days ago in The Restless Mind · Authority: 9

    Summary: Want to understand data portability and the fuss between Facebook and Google’s Friend Connect? Watch the river. A few months ago Wired ran an article on Gavin Potter, a retired British consultant who was out to crack the Netflix challenge and pocket a million bucks. While the interview focused on Potter’s use of psychology in contrast to the usual algorithmic glue that solves complex sorting issues, a side comment jumped out and has stuck with me since: “The 20th century was about sorting out supply,” Potter says. “The 21st is going to be about sorting out demand.” I’ve been thinking about that quote in relation to the recent noise about data portability and the fuss between Facebook’s closed view in contrast to Google’s (seemingly) open strategy. Jeff Jarvis got me going when he posted: “Any choke point of control, via ownership, decreases the value of the network. Enablers increase the value of the network. The network will abhor and find ways around choke points. The network will value enablers and that is the point at which value may be extracted from the network. The value in networks in the open future is not in ownership and control but in enabling others to control.” But it was Fred Wilson who cemented the Potter connection for me. As he notes, the crux of the issue is less about ownership and more about flow: the service that enables an effortless flow of your data—and experience—will hold your attention. Whether you “own” it isn’t the key issue since a) average people don’t know how to “own” it or b) don’t care to “own” it. If the service works, after all, what’s the problem? “The social graph itself is being commoditized as all things get commoditized by the subversive technology we have created on the Internet. What you cannot commoditize is the desire to create a social graph on a web service and the desire to maintain a social graph on a web service and the flow of data into and around that social graph. Social web services need not fear data portability. They need to fear others providing a better experience. Because when others do that, the flow of data moves and they aren’t in the middle anymore. They might still have your data but they won’t have you. And that’s where the value is.” That last paragraph is the Potter parable, in my mind. The 21st century is about sorting out demand. Where the 20th century grappled with real and artificial constraints of supply—how do we get these raw materials into this product that we can deliver to those regions—the post-grid generation must grapple with the real and artificial constraints of demand flow, a tidal wave of data and interactions that constitute our relationships to one another. Interestingly, the architects of the supply side needed to address flow in a similar, albeit analogue, format. Transportation routes, shipping schedules, manufacturing output: to succeed, friction needed to be removed between the flow of objects (read “data”) from one port to another. The more elegant the solution, the faster and more durable the flow. And, of course, artificial constraints were also introduced into the supply side to manipulate flow, from the good (Treasury limits money supply to avoid inflation), to the bad (five-year plans to regulate food production), to the ugly (manipulating markets, politics, and war to control diamond supply). We’re now dealing with the same flow and constraint issues on the demand side. As Jarvis points out, services that unnaturally restrict data flow will have to grapple with the consequences of rigging and what to do with excess. In some situations, flow will organically adjust itself and simply bypass the obstruction (read “new service”). And in other cases, as Wilson notes with Facebook, flow tampering is semi-sustainable if the consumer doesn’t feel the consequence. The real opportunity in flow constraint, though, is putting capacity to use and amplifying the effect. Data is like a river: you can dam it and generate electricity. That’s what Google did with search. They created a machine that, as we pass through it on our way to find something, harnesses our collective energy and turns our data flow into the most powerful asset of this generation. And interestingly, they did it by subverting the prevailing notion of search: the portal, a benign (if not annoying) throttling technique that tried to control flow by creating smaller tributaries. Really, life in general is about flow, from our biology to our relationships to our communities. And the study of flow almost always deals with “allowable constraints.” What we give versus take is situational and contextual, but it’s also the simplest and most profound way to recognize the value of flow—supply or demand.

  • Author unknown

    Not so private after all…

    http://www.lucafracassi.com/?p=10
    199 days ago in I am the voice inside your head… · Authority: 1

    Interesting article about what is going on around data portability and what happens to your “social graph” data… http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/17/facebooks-friends-data-has-already-left-the-barn/ We should all be more and more concerned about what happens to our data. The limits are disappearing quickly…

  • Author unknown

    The demise of AOL keywords and the future of Online Identity - A proposal for non-profit identity management

    http://intelliscan.typepad.com/pegasus_intelliscan_domai/200...
    195 days ago in Pegasus · No authority yet

    The struggle for online identity has been heating up lately. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, MySpace, and a slew of startups are vying to be the primary keepers of your online identity: your personal info, your communications, and (most importantly) your list of friends. Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch recently observed, "In the last ten days, Facebook, Google, and MySpace have all announced ways to let people access their data (including friends lists) from other sites, except that what they are really trying to do is erect new walled gardens by positioning themselves as the primary repository of that personal and social data." More..>>

  • Photo of prodigeek

    Google vs. Facebook and the first salvo in the Info Wars

    http://mikecs.net/prodigeek/2008/05/20/google-vs-facebook-an...
    198 days ago in Prodigeek by Michael C. Sherrin · Authority: 23

    The social networking world has been all a buzz. First MySpace announced their Data Portability to allow some sites access to MySpace user information. Then Facebook releases Connect to share its users. The Google quickly unleashed Friend Connect to try to share everything. Facebook was having none of this. They blocked Google’s Friend Connect access in the name of privacy. And let the Info Wars begin. The winner will own your data and you’ll be lucky if you have a choice. Maybe I’m hyping this a little much, but the truth is user information is to the internet what oil is to the Middle East. Advertising has its place, but slowly websites, especially social networking sites, are learning their user information is the most valuable resource. That’s why Facebook wants to block Google. Whoever controls the user info will control the internet. Google has shown an appreciation for monetizing user information, from tracking and letting you control your search history, providing free 411 telephone calls to help study voice recognition, and providing dozens of free services without advertising (Docs, Notebook, Reader, etc.) all to build a destination where users tell Google everything (Google isn’t reading your documents, but they’re probably looking at how much you write). Facebook hasn’t figured out the money yet, but it seems to know where the potential is. But Facebook’s privacy argument is obviously aimed to deprive Google of valuable information. Facebook wants to trust itself more to share your data than Google. Of course, several sites have already penetrated Facebook’s high walled gardens, as TechCrunch points out. Facebook’s position is one of arrogance rather than rationality. Facebook is assuming its users are really locked into Facebook and as a result won’t let their data leave. Why should they? All the data’s already there. Google, of course, is also arrogant, but they get to play the underdog in this space since Facebook still the hot thing, but numbers are showing Facebook’s time might be up. It’s for that reason Facebook needs to be open and inviting rather than closed and hostile. There’s always the risk users will find something new and exciting somewhere else; that’s the risk of the web - it makes competition easy forcing websites to keep innovating to keep user interest. Locking in users limits the value of the Facebook account, especially if several niche social sites pop up sharing the same data from Friend Connect. Facebook gets left out of the loop. TechCrunch also points out Facebook’s lucky its “users don’t yet know they’re angry.” Google, Facebook, and MySpace’s only-just-starting fight over your data is ignoring the question of who owns all this data. My hope with initiatives like OpenSocial and OpenID will push for users to actually own their data, emphasizing open standards to maintain your info, from friends lists to interests. I’m trying to manage new Twitter, FriendFeed, and Linkedin accounts but have to find all my friends all over again. I dream of a future where I control my data - easy data portability connecting my friends, so I don’t have to do this work all over again. Facebook can relax - I want to maintain all four accounts, but in the current walled garden world, it’s too time consuming. While that keeps me comfortable on Facebook for the present, it frustrates me and encourages me to look for less frustrating alternatives. Once that appears, I’ll be happy to leave Facebook. And that’s what Facebook should be concerned about. Share this

  • Author unknown

    Facebook’s Friends Data Has Already Left the Barn

    http://brandentertain.blogspot.com/2008/05/facebooks-friends...
    199 days ago in Digital Branded Entertainment Today · Authority: 1

    Facebook’s Friends Data Has Already Left the Barn BrandEntertain Takeaway: The digital social world is no different than the real world in the sense that humans want and need to communicate. With each passing day, the gap between digital and physical is blurring. With all the focus -now- on who owns the subscriber data and how it's shared (authorized or unauthorized) in up-to-real time, our key concerns involve the following: 1. Network subscriber data and privacy rules are lawful and reflective of subscriber agreements; and 2. Recognition that publishers and copyright owners of content catalyze and drive the open social netwoking paradigm, so services should reward them with branding control/ rules around their content. Those services that also have the foresight to favor direct involvement with brand marketers beyond traditional advertising programs will survive and thrive.Copyright (2007) BrandEntertain, LLC All Rights Reserved.

  • Author unknown

    Concerning Trust - Part 2 – Lending Information and the Social Web

    http://www.lendoza.com/2008/05/19/trust-part-2-%e2%80%93-len...
    199 days ago in Lendoza - news & information on p2p lending and the social finance industry · Authority: 6

    In a previous blog entry, we discussed the importance of trust to the social finance industry. Specifically, what it will take to gain the trust of consumers that are leery about providing financial information to begin with, much less providing extensive bank and finance information to both the lender’s site and to a group of potential lenders, who are basically foreign to them. (The exception in the case of organizations like Virgin Money who keep the lending “circle” between family and friends.) One of those issues of trust is exactly how much information about a borrower’s record should be made available to the public. The vast majority of social lending sites (particularly those like Prosper which promote direct marketplace lending) require the user to fill out an eBay like profile of themselves for potential lenders. This information includes the amount of the loan they’re seeking, their desired interest rate and usually a detailed explanation behind the purpose of the loan. This is followed by a fairly detailed financial report stating their take home income, pay & debt-to-income ratio. Certainly, this is all good information for each party involved in the transaction to have. It helps the borrower to get a better deal and the budgeting exercise might even help the borrower find a way to not have to ask for loans in the first place. On the other side of the transaction, the information is certainly helpful to those who decide to lend. They can assess the risk and the potential rate of return by running through the numbers to see if they make sense and also can browse through the personal aspect of the person’s profile so that from a human level, they can feel more involved in the process. And finally, the lending company itself needs this information so they can assess risk and take action on the individual in case of default. The problem comes when all of this information is readily available to anyone on the web, which as of this writing, it currently is. Even those who are not registered members of the site can snoop out listings that include loan info and pictures. Certainly Prosper, LendingClub & other p2p lending firms that make this information available want potential customers as a starting point to browse around and become members. However, this creates an issue for those who are borrowing and who might not want their personal information so readily available over the web. This comes to the condundrum that many social networks have had to wrestle with: Running a network of interconnected users with the ability to share information, while allowing those same people to maintain some semblance of privacy over what information is to be shared. We’ve heard and read stories of employees losing their jobs after their supervisors came across that person’s MySpace of Facebook page and saw things they might have found objectionable. Same goes for those seeking a job: Companies do scout out social networking profiles to see if they have a match and will look for factors that might influence their hiring decision. See here, here & here. A more recent example of this can be found in the war between Google and Facebook over whether or not social networking profile information can and should be available via third-party apps like Google’s FriendConnect. Again, the question of “who owns your information?” comes into play and is something that should concern any social finance user because of the inherently private nature of personal finance. As of now, first and last names of individuals borrowing on the major p2p lending networks are not made available to anyone, besides the internal network itself. But user names are. And the less tech-saavy are likely using usernames that are easily identifiable (AKA JohnSmith) or using the same handle for 20 different sites. This means that someone could easily pick up the username, run a Google search and find this person’s loan request page, complete with financial information that you would find hard-pressed to find any employee willing to give to their employer. The question to be asked here is not whether or not people involved in the transaction should be privvy to this information. But should the general public (including employers, friends, family, enemies etc.) be able to view this information as well? This should be one question the industry as a whole asks itself as it matures: a question that the rest of the social web is at odds with as well.