In a surprise move just unveiled this morning, a handful of big players led by MySpace and Yahoo! have announced that public profiles, photos, videos and friend networks will now be portable from one site to another. We're immediately wondering why this was a partnership between a handful of big sites instead of a move to truly open to the web in general.
According to a first report on TechCrunch, the initiative will begin with user information from MySpace being made available to Yahoo, Twitter and eBay in the next few weeks. MySpace is reported to have said that they will seek ways for "mom and pop sites" to participate as well in the future.
Though details are thin right now, it appears that end users will be able to do things like find friends from MySpace on Twitter, perhaps search for Twitter friends on Yahoo! Instant Messenger and perhaps port Flickr photos easily to eBay.
User authentication will be done with the emerging standard oAuth - which is a big win for the people working on that.
Below is a mock-up posted by TechCrunch of a MySpace developer's Twitter page, apparently integrating his profile information from MySpace.
We can't help but wonder why MySpace appears to be taking the lead on this initiative instead of Yahoo! - who recently announced that all their properties will be rewired top to bottom to facilitate friend and content portability. TechCrunch asserts that MySpace will become the central hub where people will store their information, but we hope that none of the partners will play that roll. True social interoperability shouldn't privilege any one site over another.
Hopefully that won't remain an issue. In a blog post this morning, Data Portability Working Group founder and chair Chris Saad announced that MySpace has officially joined the Working Group and that "we hope to see the MySpace "Data Availability" initiative evolve toward becoming a compliant implementation of the DataPortability Best Practices." We hope so too.
Ben Metcalfe, a co-founder of the Data Portability working group, is "Director of Engineering, MySpace Platform" and will be heavily involved in the deliverables, Saad told us. Metcalfe is a guy who doesn't take any B.S. so we hope he can make this work. Update: Metcalfe offers a response in comments below.
For some reason the announcement is being framed with the term "Data Availability" - which does seem to imply that it's something different from Data Portability. If MySpace ends up owning this initiative it's going to be a real shame. Data Portability standards are available and ready to be innovated upon - we really hope this partnership doesn't take the form of a new social "walled garden."
We hope that all of the content at issue will be marked up with standards-based microformats, be made accessible with standards-based authentication and be freely available to any party that wishes to innovate on top of it. Most of those wishes seem to be coming true with this announcement.
MySpace told Michael Arrington that they still intended to leverage the Google lead Open Social as soon as it was ready. That's what everyone's saying; Open Social seems to have been a major disappointment, falling far short of the kind of cross-site data portability that today's announcement seems to aim for. Hopefully this network of partners will open up fast, not just to each other but to the web at large.
Check out this new video from Data Portability, just released and seen here first. Made by smashcut-media.com. Let's hope that the folks pushing true data portability aren't relegated to making dazzling videos while the vendors keep to themselves and cut deals.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: MySpace Partners with Yahoo, Twitter, eBay on Data "Availability".
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It seems like a biz-dev deal. And with competing standards enough to worry about, I really hope we don't see existing standards fork into competing standards. I hate to say it, but I would not be surprised if MySpace were to start using non-standard authentications and/or not publish to the DP wiki. As of right now, there are no docs regarding this published to the wiki. This is evident in Chris saying that he "hopes" that they adopt best practices.
Posted by: Nick Dynice | May 8, 2008 10:57 AMMarshall I wondered exactly the same thing and asked for details in a comment on the TechCrunch post. It's ridiculous to open the data to two or three sites and not make it available to others, but that's only part of the problem, what about making it available to the users?? Maybe we're missing something or maybe Mike didn't think to ask the question. I'll try to find out more from friends at Twitter. But good work -- you asked the right question.
Posted by: Dave Winer | May 8, 2008 11:34 AMThanks for that very interesting post !
Posted by: AR | May 8, 2008 11:35 AMBen Metcalfe here from MySpace and DP (not sure if my name gets added via my OpenID authentication)
I just want to point out to everyone that this project is going to be open to everyone to wants to consume it. It is NOT a biz dev deal.
The reason for the 'launch partners' is simply to have companies to test the implementation with and also to add what we call in the world of strategy 'color' the implementation --- IE it demonstrates completely what the product is for the benefit of those who are not as technically savvy as us.
One of the key failings of a lot of good announcements like this is companies announce their API/platform/whatever but don't have any way to complete the loop and show what can be done with it - to spark the imaginations of those who may not completely get it otherwise.
Seriously guys THIS IS NOT A BIZ DEV DEAL - everyone will be able to use this!!!
Posted by: benmetcalfe.comThanks for replying Ben. Good luck over there.
Posted by: Marshall KirkpatrickMr. Metcalfe,
Why did you reinvent the wheel? Why didn't you use make use of existing Open Standards ( OpenID, OAuth, Microformats )?
Posted by: Todd | May 8, 2008 12:03 PMTodd,
I have no idea what wheel you think MySpace are inventing...
The whole thing uses oAuth for authentication and MySpace has said it is looking into implementing OpenID (the biggest issue on that front is the number of sites that ask for your MySpace username/password to add layouts to profiles - those credentials suddenly become more valuable).
I'll push for Microformats if I can be sure that all of the profile information can be represented... xfn and hCard sure, but there's other info on profiles too.
Seriously dude, no wheel being re-invented here.
Posted by: benmetcalfe.comThanks for clearing that up, Ben. I wished you could have helped write the press release. There is a lot of fluff words in there like "unprecedented," complete with superfluous quotes by executives. Maybe they could have done away with a press release all together and had Mike, Marshall, and Adam on a conf call for a with you for a Q&A with the lead devs and strategists. This would have been more in the spirit of the Data Portability movement. You know everyone is going to try to dissect this thing to death when few technical details are given. The reasons one might think it was a biz dev deal is becuase the documentation is not on the DP wiki yet, and they are calling each other "partners" (a word usually short for biz dev partners) and not something like participants or working group members.
MySpace is not going to make any friends in the open web community by hijacking the DP brand (not that anyone really owns it, just guiding it). There is already enough confusion between DP and OpenSocial, and now DA which is really the same thing as a DP Use Case yet to be published. I could understand their need to brad this announcement in some way, but Data Availability is a bit of a hijack-ish name. It is not a stretch to think that if MySpace is willing to hijack the brand, why not the entire standard and spirit of DP? I do have faith in you Ben. I am just wondering if you have enough pull as their consultant to address these PR issues as well as the technical ones.
So, what it boils down to is that a bunch a the big guys are going to use each other's open APIs in a spirit similar to DP, with the promise that others will be able to use these APIs in the near future. It is a bit like F8, only indy developers are not making the apps that make the connections, it is the big sites themselves.
Posted by: Nick Dynice | May 8, 2008 1:08 PMHey Nick, I apprecaite your comment- thanks!
I can't really comment on your point about who should have written the press release, so I won't. :)
There's also a way how all of this works in companies which works differently to how those of us in the grassroots work (I guess I transcend both) and sometimes you have to bring the value to them in their language and not the other way around.
I'm far more interested in what's implemented and how it's implemented and I'll do my best to ensure it's fully baked. To say I feel the pressure given my feet in both camps is an under-statement. but I feel like I'm putting my money where my mouth is and getting stuck in to try my best.
I do take issue with your last paragraph. This is not about 'big boys' using each other's APIs. Everyone will be able to use this and I'm hoping that the day it's available on Yahoo, eBay and Twitter it will also be available for access by anyone. Again, read my point above as to why there are launch partners - it's to test the implementation and create a complete value chain that everyone can appreciate (esp if you're a decision maker at a potential consumer for this!)
Posted by: benmetcalfe.comSorry, Ben. I didn't mean to take it out of context. I do understand that others will be able to use the API, and the need to make an announcement along with a working use case. Much respect.
Posted by: Nick Dynice | May 8, 2008 1:46 PMHey Ben,
thanks for clearing this all up here and on TC. This sounds indeed better than the initial announcement in which you could have interpreted quite a lot.
I am hope that many people involved in this will show up in esp. the technical action group. And having a working exampe at hand is certainly also not bad as this counts in the end.
Posted by: Christian Scholz | May 8, 2008 3:29 PMBen, is there an ETA on when this is to be ready? Right now it sounds like a huge PR stunt by Myspace.
Posted by: Ryan Merket | May 8, 2008 8:28 PMI wonder if while doing the migration to uF it could make sense to also start to support RDF. Please?
Posted by: gabriele renzi | May 9, 2008 11:26 AM