Now that everyone is joining the Data Portability initiative (including linked-in, flickr), Wired questions how committed to portability these companies truly are given the past claims of openness without actual follow through.

This is different from Microsoft pretending to support Linux. This is something that directly affects end-users and, in my view, within 5 years, a critical mass of them will be saavy enough to ask for it, to expect it.

So I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Ultimately, I will chose to primarily do most of my online business thru Google or Linked-in not because the switching costs are too high, but because they are the best for me. Rational and efficient. Let's hope those guys are sincere and most importantly that we start seeing some concrete applications soon.

It looks like it. Google, Facebook and Plaxo just joined the data portability working group. I was wondering whether google was serious when Eric Schmidt hinted at it a while ago. I blogged then:

[....]Google is commited to data interoperability (as in: Google lets you take your data to go to a competitor - see this Eric Schmidt interview, scroll way down) [...]Watch this space.

If this is indeed real and user data is truly portable, then it will give you control over it and will become your data. This means opening the door to a slew of services and applications aimed at helping you manage it, share it, and, why not, monetize it....

happy new year!