Let’s Talk About Data Portability/Interoperability:

Om Malik, Friday, May 16, 2008 at 6:29 PM PT Comments (17)

Weather in San Francisco Bay Area is especially nice and is likely to remain that way for a while. It makes perfect sense to sit outside and talk about the hottest topic to hit the Innerwebs: Data portability/interoperability. Whether it is Facebook, MySpace or Google, each has been coming up with ways to control the user. Somehow the noise has gotten ahead of the fact, and I would like to meet smart people about this over the weekend.

A frank conversation with non-conflicted parties that would help me write smarter and conceptually sound posts going forward. I propose: 2.30 PM at Starbucks on Clay & Battery in San Francisco on Sunday, May 18th, 2008. I will buy coffee and cakes, but please don’t pitch me your company. I want some honesty about this topic.

Looks like there is a lot of debate about this today. Check out Techmeme. I have confirmation from various folks including Marc Canter who has been a lightening rod on this issue for a while.

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17 comments so far

May 16th, 2008
6:48 PM PT
mobiljones said:

Why not do this conversation on UStreamTV so location doesn’t determine the voices and opinions you hear? And so that a wider audience benefits as well.

UStreamTV is working well for many in involved in this and other discussions. I’m just saying, it’s NewTeeVee :-)

May 16th, 2008
8:04 PM PT
Om Malik said:

we could do that - but it be better to do F2F and stream it on FlixWagon or one of the other services.

May 16th, 2008
9:31 PM PT
Chris Saad said:

Agreed Om - I couldn’t make it otherwise - my weekend is flooded so I wouldn’t be able to spend the time to travel.

May 16th, 2008
9:38 PM PT
Debi Jones said:

Actually UStreamTV is better for this sort of thing. Better chat function based upon IRC. Flixwagon is a good reporting tool not so hot for collaboration, though.

May 16th, 2008
11:49 PM PT
Elizabeth said:

Informatica and teradata held a webcast that included this topic last week. I’m into BI and very interested in using profiles from stats to alter a user experience.

May 17th, 2008
7:22 AM PT
Aswath said:

I can not be physically present. Here is my contribution to the discussion: A better approach may be what Marc Canter has been suggesting - two-sided API and the ability for users to identify which data can be accessed by whom using those APIs. The former requires an industry standard and the latter has UI implications. But both are surmountable.

May 17th, 2008
2:39 PM PT
Ben Metcalfe said:

Hmmmm no one turned up.

I was there!

May 17th, 2008
2:55 PM PT
LP said:

Was it for Saturday or Sunday?

May 17th, 2008
3:24 PM PT
Om Malik said:

LP and Ben it is for Sunday I guess. Today, I showed up didn’t see you there and left at 3 pm. Was sitting in the back of the starbucks. lets try it again tomorrow. I have three people who have emailed me and they are going to be there. so lets get together at that point.

May 17th, 2008
4:17 PM PT
Michael Chin said:

Wish I could’ve joined you for this. Been thinking about this A LOT and what it means from a web publisher’s point of view.

May 17th, 2008
6:48 PM PT

[...] I’m gonna try and make it to Om’s get together tomorrow [...]

May 18th, 2008
4:43 AM PT
MyMesh.com said:

Have it done online please… :-|

May 18th, 2008
10:43 AM PT
mobilejones said:

Yeah, it would be great to have this discussion using the tools and bringing in Chris Saad and others. Maybe Marc Canter can hook it up. He’s pretty savvy with video, and collaborative discussions when he wants and needs.

What do you think Marc? Can you do the hook up?

May 18th, 2008
11:11 AM PT
Dave McClure said:

would love to pow-wow today Om, but we’re taking the kids out for a bbq in the oakland hills…

in the interim, here’s my latest rant on this topic:
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2008/05/memo-to-google.html

hope you have a good jam session & maybe catchup later this week :)

May 18th, 2008
12:25 PM PT
Kevin Marks said:

I’d love to chat to you about this stuff sometime soon, Om, but today I’m at home with the family in San Jose. Shame you didn’t make it to the Data Sharing Summit last Thursday; we had a lot of very productive conversations there.

May 19th, 2008
8:27 PM PT

Blogged one of the topics of the conversation we had at
http://tagschema.com/blogs/tagschema/2008/05/its-all-about-tupperwaretm.html

May 21st, 2008
3:30 AM PT
Liz said:

Love your rant, Dave. Long overdue, IMO. All of the marketing and business types are jumping on the social networking bandwagon (they smell $$$) just when I’ve begun to hit my limit on how much networking I really want to do online, rather than face-to-face. It can easily get overwhelming and take your attention away from other, more valuable uses of your time.

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