The “why” of Open Standards

There’s a great book that you need to read if this whole data portability world perplexes you, called Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. Suffice to say, it’s one of those Must Read books, but what I want to share is a story the boys wrote that clearly illustrates one of its central theses.

Hurricane Katrina ripped into the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama on Monday, August 29 2005 causing more human misery and economic damage than any storm on record…

…Yet, out of the chaos, and in the face of official ineptitude, came a powerful story of how an ad hoc team of volunteers from across the country came together to concoct an information management solution that far surpassed anything the local, state, and federal response teams had mustered. At the heart of the volunteer effort was a central repository of survivor information called Katrinalist. This impromptu Web site compiled survivor data from all over the web into a searchable format that made it easy to identify and locate friends and family members…

The story goes onto say all this valuable data to capture relevant information for each person (name, location, age) was collated into a central database and that the team behind this PeopleFinder project even created an open data spec called the PeopleFinder Interchange Format. The big challenge however, was being able to scrape information from a bulletin board which typically read “My father Joe was working in New Orleans and hadn’t evacuated. He was living in Jefferson Parish. We don’t know if he’s okay. Please call me or Mom in Houston. Lisa Brown, Houston, TX.”

What occurred was volunteer efforts to manually enter data into the database, of which thousands of people later did. But there could have been a dramatic difference if there was an agreed upon standard for collecting and sharing data. Imagine if Facebook decided to participate, to allow certain details to be linked to a central identity, which could then be linked to all the data collected by the relief agencies like the Red Cross. We would have interoperability of data, minimizing effort and creating time for potentially time critical information.

Having organisations storing their data in a certain format to export and access, is not killing their competitive advantage (I would argue it helps it). And if people understood the value of Open Standards, which heaven-forbid another disaster of this scale occurs, the power of the Internet can be unleashed to potentially save some lives.

OpenID Announces Results To Its First Election

At the DataPortability Project, we’ve monitored closely the first OpenID Foundation election and are proud of the maturity, leadership and appropriate procedure shown by the OpenID foundation in this area.

It is reported that 175 of the 217 eligible members voted. Congratulations to all candidates for their efforts.

Elected to serve 2-year terms:

Elected to serve 1-year terms:

Not elected:

We thank all the candidates as the process revealed a lot of interesting discussion about what the future of OpenID should be. On behalf of the DataPortability Steering Group, I look forward to working with our colleagues at the new Foundation’s board.

Elias Bizannes
Vice-chair, DataPortability.Org Steering Group

Extended Landscape Diagram

Following on from the previous post, here is an extended diagram that shows a number of new elements.

data portability landscape - extended diagram

The new elements on this extended diagram are:

1. 3 unfilled boxes. Standardized EULA, Standardized User Experience, Standardized Business Logic. These are the 3 open opportunities/challenges for the community moving forward. Without these, standardized data portability will have a very hard time competing with Facebook Connect.
2. MySpace DataAvailability. This is a faded out blue color. While it attempts to use open standards, it is not yet completely in line with the industry best practices. It sits along the same level as the tools because it is an attempt to provide data portability without 3rd party assistance. Everything at this level could benefit from a standardization of the 3 unfilled boxes mentioned above (and shown above in the diagram).

For a full description of the rest of the diagram please see the previous post.

The data portability Landscape – An update

Given the recent intense activity around data portability (Announcements from Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo etc) and the impending end of the year, I thought it opportune to summarize the data portability landscape from my personal perspective and the perspective of the DataPortability Project.

The data portability Landscape Diagram

2008 was called “The year of Data Portability”. In many ways, that prediction was very true.

Above is a diagram of the data portability ecosystem in so far as it relates to Google Friend Connect, Facebook Connect, the DataPortability Project and the Open Stack.

1. data portability (the general idea)

The idea of data portability, in general, has emerged to mean the ability to reuse data between services in some shape or form. It may be a one off implementation between two services, a proprietary universal login play or an open standards attempt at interoperability.

2. Participating Sites

Sites that participate in providing and/or receiving data. They do this with the authority and permission of their end users.

3. DataPortability (Specific Idea)

The specific notion of DataPortability as defined by the DataPortability project is as follows:

Vision
Data portability enables a borderless experience, where people can move easily between network services, reusing data they provide while controlling their privacy and respecting the privacy of others.

For the user
With data portability, you can bring your identity, friends, conversations, files and histories with you, without having to manually add them to each new service. Each of the services you use can draw on this information relevant to the context. As your experiences accumulate and you add or change data, this information will update on other sites and services if you permit it, without having to revisit others to re-enter it.

For the Service Provider
With cross-system data access, interoperability, and portability, people can bring their identities, friends, conversations, files, and histories with them to your service, cutting down on the need for form-filling which can drive people away. With minimal effort on the part of new customers, you can tailor services to suit them. When your customers browse networked services and accumulate experiences, this information can update on your service, if people permit it. Your relationship remains up-to-date and you can adapt your services in response, even when they don’t visit. With mutual control and mutual benefit, your relationships remain relevant, encouraging continued usage.

Data portability is a new approach, where it is easier to use and deliver services. This frictionless movement through the network of services fosters stronger relationships between people and services providers and helps build a healthy networked ecosystem.

Mission
To help people to use and protect the data they create on networked services, and to advocate for compliance with the values of DataPortability.

The most important notion in that entire section is ‘Interoperability’. I’ve highlighted it in red and made it bold. Interoperability means that irrespective of who is providing or receiving the data, it should be provided in such a way that is agreed upon by the community so that the implementation is consistent irrespective of parties participating in the transaction.

Sound unrealistic? The Web is already such a system. Any web browser can request a HTML document using HTTP. It does this over TCP/IP. It sometimes uses SSL.

FTP, IRC, Email, Newsgroups, WiFi – all follow a similar pattern. These protocols are owned are not owned by companies. If they were we would have a very different Internet today. Vendors, however, innovate on top of these technologies to create Browsers, FTP clients, IRC Clients, Email Clients, Laptops and so much more.

4. DataPortability Project

The DataPortability project is the project that turned the nascent standards conversation into a full fledged riot in January of 2008.

The project is responsible for defining ‘DataPortability’, advocating its adoption by developers, explaining its value to business executives, promoting its usage to end-users and providing context and commentary on  industry news as it unfolds.

The project does not create technology or software products. It evaluates the technology and products of others provides advice to the community about its compliance (or non compliance) to the core goal of interoperable data interchange.

In essence, The DataPortability Project is the ‘Spread FIrefox’ of the standards community.

5. Tools (Google Friend Connect, JanRain RPX, Others)

Perhaps where the most innovation potential exists is in the tools layer.

Current tools have made good faith efforts to provide DataPortability complaint services to site owners. Because the specific implementation guidelines are still emerging, there is still some way to go to ensure that all the tools provide a consistent programming interface.

Current tools also act to bridge the gap by turning non-compliant systems (e.g. Systems that don’t use Open Stack) into more standards compliant end-points.

It is hoped that all services begin to implement their own standards compliance to limit the need for tools to act as gatekeepers. Tools will still be necessary, however, to provide a plethora of value-added services. These services, however, should never break the interoperability promise of ‘DataPortability’.

6. The Open Stack

These are the core open standards based technologies that make Interoperable DataPortability possible. Some have been created by formal and official standards bodies, others by ad-hoc community efforts. Some are protected by the W3C, others by the Open Web Foundation. All, represent a piece of work that is freely available, generally agreed upon and open for use by all.

7. Facebook Connect

Facebook connect is a version of ‘data portability’ (Point 1). It allows an elegant and simple re-use of data between Facebook and other services. Rather than being based on the Open Stack (Point 6), it is based on Facebooks Proprietary Platform (Item 8 on the diagram).

The key point here, however, is that Facebook Connect is owned by Facebook. Rather than interoperable point to point ‘DataPortability’ as defined by the DataPortability project, it provides a hub and spoke model where the technology and the experience is owned by a private company.

So far Facebook Connect is the best implementation of data portability available in the wild. It offers a compelling business value (millions of ready and active users) and simple APIs.

The community, via the many pieces loosely joined detailed in point 1-6, must come together to create a cohesive value proposition of its own in order to compete with this proprietary model.

Compete we must, however. Facebook, like AOL and Microsoft Passport before it, must eventually participate in the Open Web. Because the web is, and always will be, bigger than any single company.

The Future

Closed platforms are like ice cubes in a glass of water. They will float for a while. They will change the temperature of the liquid beneath. Ultimately, however, the ice cube must eventually melt into the wider web.

Facebook’s success with Facebook Connect can and will further drive innovation in the community to develop an open alternative.

Facebook’s success will also drive large media companies, competitors (like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, AOL, Myspace, countless major media properties and countless small startups) to create alternatives. At least some of those participants will recognize (if they have not already) that the most open among them will earn both the respect and the market share of the next phase. Moving from Facebook Connect’s ‘data portability’ to Interoperable DataPortability.

A web of Data.

That’s a landscape where we can continue to innovate on a level playing field.

DataPortability Project Analyst (Multiple)- Volunteer Positions

Are you interested in researching and writing about items related to the DataPortability Project and contributing to the projects overall goals? Your writing and commentary will be included in multiple external communications outlets, like the official DataPortability Blog, the DataPortability wiki, ‘newletters’, made available  to media writing on the topic and included in official DataPortability Project conference presentations and additional published materials (all with proper attribution).

What can you contribute? Here are some examples:

Analyst Focus: Technologies

What it means for You: Are you interested in being the DataPortability Project Expert on a specific technologies that the Project advocates? Select one or multiple technologies and become a point person in the Project group to analyze and comment when vendors implement these technologies, when open standards groups make moves to push those technologies further, or when new technologies are being discussed.

Analyst Focus: Vendors
What it means for You: Would you like to be “the go to” expert within the DataPortability Project on specific Vendors? We see a lot of the major vendors bringing to the market key components of data portability. If your passion lies with a specific vendor or two, you can become the Project Expert that the community relies on when information is needed or questions need to be asked possibly even becoming a point person to manage the relationship with these vendors as part of the DataPortability Service Grid project

Analyst Focus: Vertical
What it means for You: It there a specific industry vertical that you would like to monitor that requires industry expertise that you are qualified for and want to be the Project’s point person for as questions, issues and opportunities arise? Become the point person for project members to go to when they need to know the top bloggers, commenters and movers and shakers in that industry and become a liaison and leader for those industry verticals ensuring that for example speaking/presentation opportunities at industry conferences are leveraged.

Analyst Focus:Regional
What it means for You: Do you want to cover Data Portability from a regional perspective? Are issues around data portability different in the country you live in and you want to share those experiences with a global audience? Are you interested in making yourself a regional point person for the DataPortability Project to coordinate meetups, regional discussions and other events on behalf of DataPortability?

Or maybe you have something else in mind?

If any of the leadership roles and ways to contribute interest you, we are looking for multiple DataPortability Project ‘Analysts’ on a volunteer basis to monitor, write and engage with the community and vendors that are affected by data portability.

Working with the DataPortability Community Manager and the External Communications task force you can contribute as much as you want or can in order to ensure that the project continues to be a central place to gather and discover information about topics around data portability in the marketplace.

If you are interested in participating please:

Contact Daniela Barbosa or enter your name and email address on the wiki page and the topic(s) of interest that you are interested in as an official DataPortability Analyst and Daniela Barbosa or Danny Housseas  will
contact you to discuss further.