DataPortability posts

Filed under: Video, Features, web 2.0, sxsw

SXSW 2009: Catching up with DataPortabiity

by Jay Hathaway Mar 16th 2009

Grant Robertson catches up with the Data Portability project to see what they've accomplished in the past year. Turns out it's quite a lot. Internal governance mechanisms are in place, so the project can go forward and get more sites on board with its vision of interoperability and user control of data. If you don't know what Data Portability is and does, this video is a good primer.

Tags: dataportability, interoperability, interview, sxsw, video

Filed under: News, Web services, web 2.0

JS-Kit raises $3.6M in series B funding

by Christina Warren Oct 14th 2008

A few weeks ago, Mahalo's Jason Calacanis (who founded Weblogs Inc. and Download Squad) issued an e-mail missive (now posted here) predicting that 80% of all web 2.0 start-ups would fail to reach the next round of funding or profitability. The man makes some good points, and the tenuous economic climate is already leading to start-up layoffs and reduced expansion. Fortunately for the web industry, there are still some silver linings. Social widget provider JS-Kit just closed a Series B funding round for $3.6M.

JS-Kit offers compact JavaScript snippets that you can add to your webpage or blog to add dynamic rating, review, poll and comment functionality. We've discussed JS-Kit before and it really is one of the easiest ways to add threaded and dynamic commenting or Digg-like rating systems to a blog or website.

In addition to closing a second round of funding, JS-Kit has also hired on Chris Saad, co-founder of the DataPortability Project as a strategic advisor. Chris is an incredibly, incredibly smart guy -- he is also responsible for APML and Particls -- and he is sure to be a huge assett to the JS-Kit team.

Tags: chris saad, ChrisSaad, commenting, dataportability, js-kit, particls, startup

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, VoIP

SkypeSync ports your mobile phone contacts to Skype

by Jay Hathaway Jun 21st 2008

SkypeSync is a new service you can use to get all those numbers from your phone into your Skype list, so you can call them with SkypeOut, the Skype feature that lets you call regular phone numbers. It's built using the SyncML standard, which is supported by most recent phones, so the odds are pretty good that it'll work for your cell.

Here's how to use it: point your phone's browser at zyb.com, a free synchronization server recently acquired by Vodafone, and store your contacts there. Download and open SkypeSync (it's only available for Windows right now) and use its Synchronization Wizard to import your contacts from Zyb to Skype. Voila! You now have all your phone numbers ready for use with SkypeOut.

Obviously, the service is somewhat limited right now, since it only works with Zyb, but there are plans to support other synchronization servers soon. Right now, this looks like a decent solution if you're a big SkypeOut user, and don't want to face the prospect of manually entering every number you want to call on Skype.

Tags: cellphone, contacts, dataportability, mobile, skype, skypeout

Filed under: Internet, Video, web 2.0

Download Squad talks Data Portability at SXSW

by Christina Warren Mar 31st 2008

Download Squad talks to Chris Saad of Dataportability.org from Download Squad on Vimeo.

We've written about the DataPortability Project before (we even linked to a video explaining the concept) but at SXSWi 2008 we were lucky enough to talk about the project with co-founder and chairperson, Chris Saad. The project is still in the early stages of development, but the premise is powerful and the momentum that has taken place in just the last 90 days is extremely impressive.

Tags: chris saad, ChrisSaad, data portability, DataPortability, social networks, SocialNetworks, sxsw2008

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft

Is data portability becoming a reality thanks to... Microsoft?

by Brad Linder Mar 25th 2008

There's been a lot of talk over the last few months about the idea of data portability. Because let's face it, as useful as services like Facebook, Plaxo, and LinkedIn can be, the last thing you want to do when signing up for a new service is enter a few hundred names and email addresses that you've already entered somewhere else.

Many services will do a decent job of importing your contacts from another application, say Gmail. But there's no universal standard, which means that there could be some information missing, or if you have a LinkedIn contact that's not in your Google address book, how do you import them into your Facebook account?

Microsoft this week announced partnerships with LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Bebo, and Facebook. Each company has agreed to let users import their contacts using the Windows Live contacts API.

At first glance, the last company we would have expected to propose an answer is Microsoft. The company has a long history of trying to lock users into its own software and services. But the more we think about it, the more it makes sense. Microsoft has also launched Invite2Messenger, a service that makes it easier to invite members of each social network to be your Windows Live Messenger contacts. In other words, if you don't have a strong social network of your own to promote, why not partner with a bunch of popular services in an effort to promote an area where you're already strong: instant messaging.

[via WebWare]

Tags: data-portability, dataportability, invite2messenger, portability

Filed under: Internet, News, Web services, web 2.0

Microsoft to join DataPortability.org

by Christina Warren Jan 23rd 2008

Computerworld is reporting (and ReadWriteWeb is confirming) that Microsoft will be joining the Data Portability Working Group. Microsoft adds to the growing list of companies that have signed on with DataPortability.org. Since the beginning of the year, Google, Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr (Yahoo!) and SixApart have joined the project. The project, which in its own words, aims to allow users to "connect, control, share and remix" their data across multiple online services and protocols. As the Computerworld article points out, getting Microsoft to join in is a real boon to the project because of its vast user base. More than 400 million users have an account with Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail or both.

The concept of data portability has become a pretty hot topic in the last few weeks, thanks to the brouhaha over Robert Scoble's screen-scraping scheme that led him to get banned from Facebook for less than a day and with the announcement that high profile players, Google and Facebook, would be joining the endeavor.

As a video we posted last week explains, attempting to keep accounts and contacts synchronized across multiple sites and platforms is one of the more tedious side effects of the whole Web 2.0 revolution. DataPortability.org wants to change that.

And although it is still very early, moves like last week's announcement that Yahoo! will begin supporting the OpenID 2.0 framework leave us hopeful and inspired.

Tags: data portability, DataPortability, hotmail, microsoft, openid, social graphs, SocialGraphs, windows live, WindowsLive

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Productivity, Social Software, web 2.0

Data Portability explained in video

by Romeo Wahed Jan 15th 2008

There has been a lot of buzz about Data Portability with newcomers like Facebook and Plaxo joining, but you might still be wondering what exactly all this means in the big picture. Well, Michael Pick of Smashcut Media has been kind enough to create a little piece that attempts to put everything into perspective and what the Data Portability movement is about.

If we're allowed to take one random stab at what's in store for the future, this is probably going to be the first major component of Web 3.0. Since it looks like a lot of barriers that prevent users from integrating services will be removed, the focus will continue to shift towards content and usability. Chances are good that this is going to really bring in the competition - start-ups will find it easier to acquire new users and the big dogs will have to fight harder to hold on to them.

Since we're not professional fortune tellers, this is just a hunch. But it's probably going to take at least another year before we see Data Portability living up to any of its promises.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Tags: data portability, DataPortability, explanation, video, web 3.0, Web3.0

Filed under: Google, Social Software, web 2.0

Plaxo, Facebook, and Google go 'open' by joining DataPortability.org

by Jason Harris Jan 8th 2008

In the wake of last week's explosion of attention on data portability on social networks, (that is, being able to take your data from one social network to the other) there is a huge development today. Google, Facebook, and Plaxo have all announced they're joining DataPortability.org.

What does this mean? Well to quote the announcement directly, "Users will be able to access their friends and media across all the applications, social networking sites and widgets that implement the design into their systems". Potentially it means social network widget and application creators will be able to write their widgets for use on any compatible social network.

Considering all these social networks are fighting for our attention, we are not sure how 'open' these social graphs will truly be. Will we be able to export our friends list from Facebook and take it over to MySpace and vice versa? Might we be able to take Facebook applications and use them in MySpace?

These are the types of questions that still need to be answered. Stay tuned to Download Squad for updates as they come across the wire.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Tags: dataportability, facebook, google, plaxo

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