In this very special episode of the DataPortability: In-Motion Podcast, Trent’s brother R. Mark Adams joins the data portability discussion. He is a genetic engineer who earned his Ph.D. in cell biology and was a pioneer in the field of bioinformatics. He is currently a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton and runs their bioinformatics group. Of specific interest related to data portability is his work for the open CaBIG (Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid) project, a National Cancer Institute initiative to link cancer researchers and their data.
Up until now, we have focused primarily on the use cases around existing social networking websites. There is, however, a wealth of knowledge and experience to be tapped within other fields. Mark has worked for over 15 years designing and building large-scale informatics systems. Further, his extensive experience within the standards and open source communities place him in a unique position to provide valuable insight into issues being explored by the DataPortability Project.
During the conversation, Mark offered up some cautionary comments regarding the process of defining standards:
There’s a tendency on the part of industry, broadly, to try to skip to a technology stack as a means of adopting standards quickly.
One has to be careful in how one creates standards. This is why I say trying to divorce standards as cleanly as possible from their underlying technology implementations is important to do. The reason being it allows you to determine standards that can be widely adopted and used without the complexity or the risk of lock-in.
Rounding out the discussion was a call to action on both sides. Mark is reaching out to the DataPortability Project to become more involved in the bioinformatics field, and suggests we solicit participation from within their ranks.
I had no idea what the guys at the office were up to when they camped out in the conference room one evening with their video gear. I figured it was just one of those things you just shouldn’t ask any questions about, and quietly move on. Well, here’s what they were doing:
… and I have to admit I think their take on collaborative filtering is pretty funny.
The show is kicked off with a discussion about his recent speculation that Microsoft could buy Facebook and keep it closed. Scoble talks about the services and tools like FriendFeed that offer alternate news streams to counter the Facebook hegemony. The discussion also flowed around automated behavior tracking, advertizing, and the interplay between control/privacy within various portable data models.
Of particular interest is Scoble’s view of the inevitability of an open flow of user data:
Openness does win in the end. It will just take a little bit of time to get there. We’ll see a lot of new stuff come along to make it easier for users to open these systems up.
I’ve known this project was in the works for a couple years now. It started as a “wouldn’t it be fun” kind of idea, and slowly became more real as my brother began compiling the necessary schematics and “how-to” docs to make the dream a reality. Imagine the grin on my face, then, when Flickr notified me this morning that a photo of the completed project was ready for my viewing pleasure.
Those of us old enough to remember a time when you could only play video games at an arcade will appreciate this. Mark built a cabinet that’s nearly identical to the ones we used to feed with quarters at the Manitou Springs Penny Arcade. The primary difference, of course, is that rather than playing only one game, his runs a MAME emulator under Linux so you can jam to all of your old favorites.
Ahhh… for the hours spent with the posse amidst the din of the outdoor arcade on a breezy summer night. Nicely done, BlackRazor.
For Plaxo, we have Joseph Smarr, Chief Platform Architect, and John McCrae, VP Marketing, talking about the acquisition and how it furthers data portability. Specifically, Smarr made it clear that the name of the game in portability is not making everything homogeneous, but rather opening up the flow of communication across systems:
Data portability is about empowering users to connect the tools they use so they don’t have to repeat themselves over and over again. So that the information can flow for others to discover it. It would be a mistake to characterize it as making everything exactly the same.
On the same thread, returning guest Kevin Marks, Developer Advocate for Google’s OpenSocial project, highlights their commitment to the openness of data portability:
One company can’t hold anything hostage because we’re connecting together open standards. All these pieces can be supplied by multiple parties. You can interoperate without having to have a business negotiation because you can write to the standard and the standard works.
In the discussion, Marks also corrects some common misconceptions around Google’s Friend Connect. Some of the reporting about it mistakenly assumed that Google would be siphoning off the friendship graph when using it’s system to connect sites. He clarifies that Friend Connect enables the portability of user data by mapping the connections, and isn’t storing the data itself.
