Written on June 23, 2008 – 3:00 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Remember the little OpenID incident at Next08 in May? I promised Andreas Stephan from Six Groups that I would blog about his service, if he would make OpenID support his top priority. Well, so it happened, and on June 6th, Six Group integrated OpenID login. Apparently, that has inspired another big German start-up as well, since Oliver Moser from Jimdo mailed me that his service also supports OpenID now.
Jimdo is an online Ajax-based website builder, which makes it easy for basically anyone to create a slick-looking page - sort of like an online iWeb. Their list of widgets is impressive, and Alexa tells us the service has been steadily growing. Here’s what Oliver has sent me:
From today on we’re supporting OpenID - but not as a provider, just as a host. Jimdo-users can now sign into their Jimdo-Page with their OpenID. But more important, they can use their personal Jimdo-Domain as an OpenID, even though Jimdo is not the provider. So if they comment on a blog post they can use their own domain - which of course makes a lot of sense.
You may wonder why Jimdo doesn’t act like a provider. Oliver has an answer to that question too: “There are already so many of then, so there’s no need for Jimdo being an additional one. And since OpenID enables Dataportability, we can actually make great use of it.”
Last week, some people at Supernova said OpenID and Dataportability have just become press releases machines. I can see why they say that, but I also think that it doesn’t hurt anyone (apart from our email inbox) since more and people will get familiar with the idea of open data. Also the less web-savvy ones, like most of the Jimdo users.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on April 23, 2008 – 5:31 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
DataPortability was founded in November of 2007 to promote the idea that individuals should have control over their data by determing who can use it and how it can be used. This includes access to data that is under the control of another entity.
After Red Hat sent a Cease and Desist claiming that the DataPortability logo was too similar (Identical, in their words) to the Fedora Logo the DataPortability Project needed a new design. So they asked their community to come up with designs and vote on them. They received over 400 designs and thousands of votes.
This is the new logo on the left, the old logo in the middle and the Fedora logo on the right:
(more…)
Written on April 4, 2008 – 4:35 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Khris Loux and Chris Saad became friends because of the Next Web. During all the meetings they noticed they generally had the same interest and ideas. Not that those shared interests matter though, since Khris started the couch interview with the remark that we all have to be friends with Chris. Whether we’re publishers, entrepreneurs or bloggers, Chris Saad’s Dataportability is good for you.
Thus I’m really glad that I digitally met Chris a couple of months ago when I interviewed him for this blog. I asked him how I should explain Dataportability to Average Joe and his answer probably is a good start for this post: “A user would simply log onto a site, grant permission, and their friends, personal details and media - images, video, documents - are already populated and accessible - Nothing more complex than that.”
Just like during Diggnation, there was beer on stage. The Next Web is one rock ‘n’ roll conference
When he said something similar on the couch, the audience rewarded with a round of applause. So it’s clear that users are looking forward to get control of their data. Yet what are the advantages for the vendors? Chris: “Vendors get a broader picture of the user. Google owns the search space, yet they have no idea what books people buy on Amazon.”
This sounds good, but at the same time companies traditionally make money because they have locked in their data. So all the big guys who are joining Dataportability now, aren’t they just doing that for good PR? Chris: “If some companies joined the Dataportability group just for the PR that is just fine with us, since they do endorse the conversation. And if they don’t implement the new open standards, others will. So if they don’t implement, that’s actually great since it gives everyone in this room a chance to out-innovate them. Now, the task of Dataportability is to give the companies best practices for implementing new standards. If those companies say they will implement, but actually don’t, it’s up to the bloggers and the audience to confront them with this flaw”.
Chris then threw out some great one-liners, like: [to companies:] “You don’t own users, users own you” and “If you don’t join the standard of the time, you’ll loose”. But I’d like to conclude with probably the most important one: “The new innovation platform is data”.
By the way, the audience could ask questions on Twitter. So I asked Chris which major company is taking a lead on the field of open data standards. His answer? Microsoft! Chris: “The ones who are loosing now are very interested and they’re the ones who apply pressure to the others”.
Written on January 7, 2008 – 4:31 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Australian web attention expert Chris Saad is on a mission: he wants a complete reference design to combine technologies that make it possible for users to share their personal data between chosen tools. “We need a DHCP for Identity. A distributed File System for data.” DataPortability.org and a Google Group are his main platforms.
And what will this look like? Saad: “A user would simply log onto a site, grant permission, and their friends, personal details and media - images, video, documents - are already populated and accessible - Nothing more complex than that.”
Saad realizes he needs the support of users in order to complete his mission. “Users will need to be educated about their rights”, he says. But how on earth will he convince the normal user, Average Joe on Facebook, to start shouting: “We want to share our data!”? Since it’s a rather complicated and abstract story for people who aren’t involved in the Web 2.0 scene.
Saad of course thought about this and sent me a four-point list, explaining how he’s going to evangelize his mission:
- “People like Robert Scoble (watch his video) and other ‘Celebrity User Stories’ will help bring light to the issue.
- An education campaign needs to be (and will be) created with documentation and examples designed for users to understand. We have started this process by starting some ‘ActionPacks‘.
- We will begin promoting the DP Badge as a sort of ‘Intel Inside’ brand to look for when visiting sites. We hope this will be a simple way of identifying services and vendors that respect user rights and conform to the reference design.
- Workgroup members and early adopter start-ups will begin implementing the DataPortability reference designs and act as shining examples for users to get a feel for what the world could be like.”
His last point is interesting, since some start-ups and workgroup members might gain market share by having first mover advantage. Saad: “As you can tell by looking at the workgroup members already, there are individuals who happen to work at very large companies such as Yahoo, Myspace, Seesmic, Disney, BBC, NineMSN, Dow Jones/Fox and others. That’s not to say those companies have committed to anything, but the individuals involved are very smart and committed people.”
“A DataPortability enabled experience should be simple to use and to be expected”
Apparently, Saad wants to start a buzz in the blogosphere and geeky parts of the web, hoping that they will reach the average customers. “Exactly, we will start with early adopters and influencers and work our way into the mainstream. Ultimately though, the hope is that a ‘DataPortability enabled experience’ should be simple to use and to be expected,” Saad explains.
That will take some time, if it ever comes true. Yet, as long as Saad keeps explaining his plan in a simple way and manages to prove the major advantages, Average Joe just might start shouting.
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