1. Facebook got its start by ripping personal content from other web sites. It’s hypocritical if they really think others shouldn’t try to do the same thing to them. Far more likely it’s just an effort to protect mindshare and revenue that’s behind their complaints.

2. Minggl shows just how futile it is for Facebook to complain.

3. Of course Facebook isn’t private. Duh!

4. We’ve known for a good long while now that e-mail and other Internet traffic isn’t private.

There’s no news here. Let’s all move along now.

The approach that Facebook should have with Friend Connect is to ask the user and his friends if he wants to make his data portable. If he wants, who is Facebook to stop it?

Where is the problem to come up with protocols which allow only those data exposed to those people I wish it to be exposed to?

I would like people to collect some use case examples where you want to share data in a controlled way. One example would be those many people in Second Life who want their identities being separate from their RL. That’s of course possible in that you simply have 2 facebook accounts, 2 twitter accounts etc. It just does not make sense. Behind the scenes you still would like to copy data over in an easy way. You need to authorize access of course.

So I would rather like to see the start of a debate on how we can preserve privacy instead of seeing statements like “privacy is dead”. The main problem I see more is that right now most data is publically viewable on most systems and this has to change. Put OAuth in front etc. and give the user control.

If having data portability is such an important thing to someone then the simplest most effective way of doing so is using your own service to collect that data. Whether it is by having your own blog, personal website, forum or something similar that you own and have full access to. When you want the data, you simply open up your Database and pull out what you want. Quick and easy.

You want more than 5000 friends, build a blog that supports more than 5000 friends, want a service that has reliable uptime, build a blog that sits on a good server, want to update your information about yourself in one location, login to your blog admin panel and update your information in one location. Simple

Having the same discussion in 10 different places? Here’s an idea, start the discussion on your blog and discuss it there. The goal of almost all websites is to have visitors on your site and on remain on your site as long as possible, so having the discussion on your site in one location creates lots of traffic to those ads which your sponsors like to have on your site which equals more money for both. (Money isn’t everything so just having visitors would be worth it too even if not trying to increase revenue)

But how do I get people to my site if I am not networking on Facebook, or MySpace, or twitter or all the hundreds of other social networks? Well it works the same way any other site does it like Digg.com, TechCrunch.com, Engadget.com etc. They write articles, they voice opinions, they engage their customers, it’s interactive, they have discussions they have enough quality content that people come back for more.

Personally I don’t want someone to share my information from one site to another site, especially without direct permission from me, it’s just asking for trouble no matter how you look at it. Remember how when you sign up on different websites and they say “We do not sell or redistribute your information”? Well the reason for that is because I don’t want my information going places where I didn’t ask it to go. By sharing information through different social networks with or without permission throws the whole idea of protecting your information out the window.

It’s plain and simple, you want data portability, you have to setup a location that you control, Facebook, Myspace, etc. are never going to give you full access to your information just like I can’t go to the bank and ask for everyone’s account numbers even though we are all in the same “social banking network”.

Websites are businesses; businesses need traffic to increase revenue, releasing data to other services releases customers from sticking around your site which decreases traffic which decreases revenue.

(Directed at everyone) Instead of spreading yourself across 50 different social networks where 90% of your followers are probably following you on the same 50 different social networks, how about focusing on your own blog or website where you control the data, the users, the information and the discussion and build it into a successful portal to share ideas and information on?

Welcome to the DRM of social networking :-)

I think the solution is http://www.mesh.com. You should own your data and share it easily. It is in my devices, therefore I own it. And it is easy to share, but I own it and share what I want and use any application I want.

On the other hand, minggl takes a users choice into consideration, as a user will install it if he is open to having his contact list shared. Flock does the same. And by installing Flock and then allowing it to access my Facebook, I choose to allow my data to be available in the way I wish it would be.

The concept of privacy has 2 major parameters:: whose privacy and who controls what is to be shared…my 2 bits… its the users privacy which is important, and its got to be the users choice…

On the other hand, if users want to import their contacts/friend lists across Social Networking Platforms, the platforms should provide tools to allow the same…but these should be used by the users, and not by other platforms …

” You can see him at the end of the event where I shoved my cell phone in his face and tried to get him to comment. He refused.”

Of course he refused. You SHOVED A CELL PHONE IN HIS FACE.

http://mikeg.typepad.com/perceptions/2008/05/facebook-is-cor.html

http://mikeg.typepad.com/perceptions/2008/05/data-portabilit.html

Erm, so what does Facebook Connect do, if it doesn’t do, oh, exactly that?

Dawn, you have a good point.

Data does not work like money. If somebody takes your information, like your business secrets and your social security number and your medical records, you may never know or find out years down the line when you’re adversely affected. And there is no good way to compensate you for the loss.

If somebody suddenly comes out with a product or service very similar to the one you were designing using cloud computing, could you prove that somebody accessed your records? No. They could argue it’s a coincidence or that they got the information some other way.

It’s not like banking at all, and everybody who makes this argument doesn’t understand how hard it’s going to be to get the mainstream public to trust the Cloud.

I just finished replicating my original blog (http://www.eclecticismo.com/hhblog) to WordPress.Com (at http://bloghh.wordpress.com) because I trust WordPress will be around for years to come and they have given me the capability to move my data if I ever desire to do so.

Next up is my 35GB of pictures. Eventually I’ll move my real personal data when I find a vendor who has proven themselves in the market place.

Have no doubt that “Cloud” computing will grow and become as common as turning on a light switch — the data will just be there no matter where you are in this world and one day in the Galaxy, then it will be “Space Computing.”

This is why I think most people will never trust cloud computing.

“I don’t have no time to monitor no skink’in Twit or Friendfeed!

Peter
do you follow me @ http://twitter.com/peterurban