15May2008
Posted by Dan under: social web.
So, in the last week we’ve seen MySpace, Facebook, Google and no doubt other lost in the news rush all promoting their data portability initiatives or attempts at lowering the bar for people to use data sharing or access a person’s social network across platforms. This is all great news in terms of taking very real steps towards changing the web.
While in the short term we have market segregation in terms of the fact that we’re bound to have organisations trying out their own ideas of how they want to share or be open or use other services I think that we need to understand that all of these things are just baby steps. Who know which technology or combination thereof will end up being the de facto for data portability? It’s not just portability either (ie. seemlessly moving your data from one place to another) but identity (enabling a single sign-on for many services) and access to your stuff buried deep in site’s silos (your images, etc in MySpace, Flickr, et al).
There’s a lot of interlinked concepts here, which is in part the reason it’s going to take a while before we have any established methods or standards. We need to watch what these companies are doing and encourage them on, experiment with our own developments and share our opinions about what we want out of this as web users and developers.
Once we have gone a long way down this road, I can imagine that the web could be a very different place. You will have control over your stuff. You only every need to remember one user-name (or URL) and password (in a perfect world) and you should be able to talk to friends across social networks and share media from one service to the next. As well as imparting this power to the people, most sites should be able to take advantage of this social layer, which could change what they offer. In terms of social networks, you should be able to choose the one you like best and share across networks. This means that to retain members networks should be concise and offer clear USPs and not try and copy each other so much. Niche networks could actually benefit the most, as they could be the ‘home’ network for many people and not have a restriction on only being able to share within that (potentially) small user-base.
It’s all interesting steps…
12May2008
Posted by Dan under: social web.
Through my ton of feeds I found these today, which are pretty interesting…
First of all, Chris Messina has a great lengthy post about data portability, which explains a bit about it, the good, the bad, the benefits. Definitely worth a read!
It’s also worth checking out this post about how OpenID and APML could be used in shopping online and another from Carsten ‘Data Portability? Let’s get rid of it‘. On the whol, he has a valid point. There’s so many people and groups trying to find a means of sharing personal information and our networks. There’s loads of interrelated technologies involved in this openness of data and many big companies all involved in the processes behind establishing a way forward.
It’s great to have some big names on board, to help finalise a easy way to implement a way of providing an open service but at the same time they’re trying out their own initiatives. The idea of people open is fraught with problems and issues around privacy and security but for the (developer section of the) public, having so many examples of data portability emerging throughout the web just makes for uncertainty - if you’re creating an app or extending one you already have and want to embrace the idea of openness what do you do? Do you wait for one of these working groups to produce something you can latch on to? Select one of the big initiatives (OpenSocial, Data Availability, etc) or maybe figure it out for yourself?
This makes the ideas of being open and sharing data still seem a long way off in practical terms. I’m sure though that if enough people discuss the issues and prove technologies and implementations it can’t be long before developing around these ideas can be a more fundamental part of how we make sites and applications on the web.
9May2008
Posted by Dan under: General.
Following on from a previous post (Why Blog?) and now that I’m a more avid blogger, I’ve got a few reasons why web developers should blog.
First of all, when I was thinking about this on my journey home I realised it’s the careerists I’m talking about. If you do web development for a day job and you leave it behind when you leave there’s no slur intended but if you’re someone who has a passion for anything on the web - share it.
Build a personal brand
I hate that heading already! Who wants to be branded? Using a marketing word makes me a little uncomfortable but in the end that’s what we’re doing. It’s how you get known for your opinions and sharing what you know. In many ways it’s as good as a CV because you can over time show the depth of your passion and understanding for your specific interests and show how you’ve developed.
Network
If people read what you write and comment, it’s a basic form of networking and with using networking sites like LinkedIn and showing that on your blog it can encourage networking opportunities.
Hone your knowledge / question what you think you know
I have to admit that since I’ve been writing more here and on LinkedIn’s Q&A section, it’s really helped me to think through ideas or notions I have. The process of putting these into words can be really beneficial.
Community
Within web development (and the millions of niche subjects within) there’s well known bloggers or sites out there such as Cameron Moll and Jeffrey Zeldman and sites like Site Point and A List Apart for example. I think even though the average web developer will have very few subscribers (at least to begin with) it can help you feel like your a part of something bigger and that you can help share information and express your opinion.
9May2008
Posted by Dan under: social web.
Some interesting news broke today about how MySpace is opening up personal profile data in a project they call ‘Data Availability’ and have announced they’re joining the Data Portability group. So far as I can see, there’s a gradual roll out from allowing you to export and wander off with your profile data, leading up to anything from MySpace at all - your friends, your media and preferences.
MySpace were one of the first to join up in Google’s OpenSocial movement and it appears they will be using oAuth too. I’m not sure yet how much of what they’ve done is proprietary or based on open standards (such as those the Data Portability group endorse). It’s about time one of the big players stepped forward with a message like this. It’s OK to be open - we’re not scared of everyone leaving us in droves!
Check out articles about this on c|net and John McCrea’s blog (Plaxo) for more background on this.
I’ve said for a while (more often that not on LinkedIn answers), that if social networks want to breakfatigue and find more value, they need to provide compelling services and allow people the freedom to use whichever service suits their needs. I’m actually surprised that MySpace was the first, maybe there’s hope for it yet…? I’m doubtful as to whether Facebook would ever take this approach to openness - they like their controlled silo too much I think…
7May2008
Posted by Dan under: General.
It’s something I think about from time to time; Why do we feel the need to own a hard copy of music or films anymore - especially those of us that work around computers?
I eventually succumbed to the iPod and I’m really pleased I did. I listen to far more music because of it and revisit tracks I’d long forgot about and sampled tasters of bands I’d never heard of far more frequently but this reminds me that we’re potentially at a transitional phase. Will we ever go all-digital when it comes to music and films?
Increasingly we have technology in our lounges that is web enabled so you can easily imagine a time when you can download movies to your TV… I have a fairly decent sized DVD collection and partly through eco-matters and the fact that when it comes to this stuff I always hunt for the lowest price, I’m starting to wonder why it is I buy media like this.
There is a difference in looking through racks of CDs to find something; an inspired choice. You can pour over the artwork and maybe invoke a bit of nostalgia. The whole thing has been designed from the track listing, the artwork, the packaging, etc. The logo might change for an album, the band photo might have different members than their previous album. Is there a way we can replace this with the purely digital?
Years ago, I’d buy into a band and I’d collect everything by them as it came out and hunt down back issue stuff - but maybe that’s partly due to growing up in a record shop ;) I’ve got rid of loads of CDs over the years and yet I still have a hoarde of 100s of old albums and singles. When bands are no longer popular or have long been forgotten, aside from personal value, what are they except plastic boxes taking up space on your shelves?
The digital thing concerns me too. If I buy a CD, I’ll rip it into iTunes so that I can take it around with me but I’ll do this at the highest quality MP3. Most downloads are half the bit-rate and because of the compression, they lose elements orf the tracks you can’t get back. Although on a portable device like an iPod you can’t notice too much, on a larger/better system I’m convinced you can - but is that because I’m biased because I understand how the compression algorithm works?
So - I’m torn between the old and the new. I’m not ready to be all digital yet but I almost resent having lumps of metal and plastic like CDs. I like rooting through a pile of CDs I’ve not browsed in a while, which are in some random order and finding a jem - cover-flow doesn’t come close!
Finally, there’s the almost philosophical point in this - our sense of ownership. We go to a shop and buy a ‘thing’; it’s ours. If it’s all digital does it somehow degrade the sense of ownership and with it, lose the investment we can make in buying into the bands or the films we chose to have access to?
If the digital future brings subscription-based models to the fore, isn’t there a danger that in having wide-open access at someone else’s discretion that we become more apathetic. Want the entire works of the Rolling Stones? Turn on the music tap. Want 100 tracks by new artists the system reckons are like what you already own?
On the other hand, maybe it’s a sign I’m not a teenager any more ;)
4May2008
Posted by Dan under: social web.
This is kind of a follow on to my previous post about identity on the web and data portability. One thing I have been thinking about for a while to how we as people can often have discrete sections of our lives which may or may not cross-over. We have families, friends, jobs, hobbies - each with various relationships and a way that we present ourselves.
Everyone’s lives are different (stating the obvious) , we use different services too. For example; I use Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn and have dabbled with others. For me, these represent different aspects of what I’m interested in or what I do and there’s a little overlap but often not much. I can’t presume it’s the same for anyone else but I could assume that other people’s work and home/family life is different or that their friends might not always be the same as their colleagues.
As users of social networks, do we want one system that can enable us to model our lives or use different niche networks for different needs? Do we (as a user-base) care about one system ‘knowing’ all about us or do niche systems meet the needs of certain aspects of our lives in a more meaningful way?
The word is that Facebook might be slowly repositioning itself so that it could attract the LinkedIn/Xing business networking audience, which is interesting if not predictable. I’m interested what this could mean for identity and social or business relationships online. Can a company position itself as a ‘relationship networking’ service?
4May2008
Posted by Dan under: social web.
There is a big movement on the web about peoples’ identity at the moment. It’s not just about security, it’s about how you sign-in to the accounts with sites and services you use and how you can control the information about yourself.
So we have the DataPortability Group, which encompasses many technologies such as OpenID, oAuth and many others as well as project Diso. The community is attempting to derive a means of embodying control and identity for users on the web and who you relate to (XFN/FOAF) , what you like (APML) and what feeds you read (OPML) mixing in useful technologies to form a meaningful whole.
Aside from the difficulty in technological implementation, not only of a working solution but a solution that can be easily adopted by developers world-wide, I think we have some basic issues on a more conceptual level before people are really going to use this.
Say you have a single point of identity - your login is through a URL such as http://yourname.provider.com. This suggests to me that your identity could be prone to the same issues as the average website but with more profound effects. If you identity or provider goes down, you can’t log-in to any of your sites or services (unless a fall-back is considered), the providers would increasingly become the target of criminals and you would need the assurance in whoever is you identity host.
AOL and Orange (France Telecom) for instance have enabled their user accounts as OpenIDs, which is a significant move in terms of availability (but still is an issue over whether there are the opportunities to use these on many high profile consumer websites and whether their customers understand what this means to them). With a name like this, you may feel a sense of security but it’s possible for any developer or host to become an OpenID provider. Would a bank be a more likely source for your identity or is putting all of your important personal information in one place asking for trouble?
Imagine all of your accounts on the web used your URL as your login and services polled your APML for interests, your feed reader polled you OPML reading lists, etc. This much reliability surely needs a different and more secure kind of host?
Any thoughts?
25April2008
Posted by Dan under: web development.
I dreaded that we’d soon reach the point of trying to label what web3.0 would be. The fantasy, the conjecture - stop now! While web2.0 grouped a collection of technologies, design and concepts, it’s implied versioning of the web is proving counter-productive. These are tools to help us do our jobs as developers, buzzwords to explain concepts to investors and that’s about it. Read/Write Web has a decent post on this.
As that post illustrates, the v3 of the web has many ideas because the web doesn’t work like that. There are a lot of great and interesting technologies out there but let’s not try and dump them all together, eh.
There are still many sites out there which aren’t accessible, which aren’t usable and some which have no point at all. Are these relics of web 1.0 or v1.5? While we look to the future of cloud computing and the socialisation of the web, we need to keep pushing to bring every site up to a decent standard with these basics in mind. The average user might not have even heard of web2.0 (thank god) and these are the people that need our help as developer now.
Make sites work better for people. Leave the buzzwords at home.
** UPDATED **
I just read this piece over at OnStartUps, which feels much the me way - and this one - web4.0, are you kidding?
24April2008
Posted by Dan under: mobile web.
I read this piece on The Register this week, which isn’t the first I’ve read recently about the death of the mobile web. It’s sad passing will be mourned by 1000s, but many will probably not notice.
The sad thing is that this needs to happen. Not because it’s inherently a bad idea but because at least one part of the equation hasn’t added up. I still believe that access to web-based service can and should happen through any device that can do it but the history of the mobile web to date has necessitated it’s death.
Way back in 1997 I remember reading about WAP and how it would bring the Internet to mobile phones; a couple of years later there were adverts on TV from telecom companies telling you the web was on your phone. The reality was there were hardly any sites to use (in the traditional chicken and egg scenario) and the speed of the network and devices was doggedly slow. Want to check on eBay? Wait 3 minutes and it’ll cost you £1…sounds like the future is here!
The reality is that unless the user experience is compelling, usable and affordable very few will ever use it. The iPhone is a step in the right direction but the whole answer. Now we have a device that is compelling to use and that people are prepared to pay for so are monthly bills aren’t (entirely) subsidising our handsets. This allows the operators to offer flat-rate web usage, which makes the service usable and for roughly what we’d expect to pay for a monthly contract.
With the iPhone we can also browse any website rather than mobile-only sites. Good in that you can get to anything you’d normally use but, in my opinion it’s also a bad thing.
We still have the cross-handset, cross-browser issues to contend with in providing mobile sites (check Cameron Moll’s book) but in my opinion there are different needs of someone accessing through a different device. It’s understanding the service you’re offering on the web and what of it people might need on the move.
I think the history of the mobile web so far has to die in order to start the next chapter and hopefully we can learn from it.
16April2008
Posted by Dan under: social web.
I’ve long been behind the idea of data portability, especially in relation to social networks but does any member of the public actually care about this - or should they?
On the face of it, people have accounts for specific needs - Amazon because you are a customer, Facebook because that’s what you use for your social networking, etc. So why would DP make any difference to them? Surely it’s a technical problem with a technical solution?
While that is the case, I believe that it will change the nature of how people can use sites and services on the web. Let’s be fanciful for a second and suppose that we’re in a time when this is possible:
A new service is launched that appeals. You read about it and click join up. You paste in your OpenID (or equivalent) with your password, the service checks your details, you confirm that you give them access to the data they’ve requested and boom - you’re in. Not only that but if any of your friends use the service, you’re already connected. Out in your ‘personal dashboard’ (or social network home page), you can see your lifestream of who you know is doing what on which service and use your favourite tools to communicate and share across services.
You should be able to move from one service to the next painlessly. This also means that the service needs to work around value beyond using it’s closed walls to amass a number of users. Their service needs to have a clear USP and offer real benefit to their users or people can move on.
Facebook in particular seem to be embracing open access but on a very one way street; while you can access limited data sets from their API, they’re bring in more data from outside their system, making the proposition that you don’t need to go anywhere else - you can do everything you want here! But the fact that once you become so embedded in a silo like theirs it’s not easy to leave limits the chances of anyone trying another social networking service. Good fr Facebook but not great for users - in my opinion.
The reason I like DP and OpenID is the fact that you should own your stuff - the information people have about you and the files and media you share. Services should be a mechanism to facilitate a need - like social networking with communication, Flickr for photo sharing, etc. With portability, services will have to raise their game to retain users, which I believe should also give real merit to high company valuations for those that succeed in an open environment.
The public shouldn’t care about it now, but they should notice once a solution is found how they have more freedom and ownership, which if it’s successful would be a powerful thing.
** UPDATE **
Check out this article which is kind of related: http://techwhimsy.com/data-portability-do-normal-people-even-care
