Published by Carsten Pötter May 11th, 2008
in Data Portability.
DataPortability, Data Availability, Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, DiSo,… Did I forget any initiative? Probably. Can you tell without cheating who is supporting those initiatives? Which technologies are used? Are those initiatives even trying to solve the same problem? And if so, why are they called different?
From the outset data portability wasn’t easy to explain. And not just to your average end user, by the way. It seems like every company has its own idea of what data portability is and should be about. Despite press releases filled with claims about openness, portability, and general user friendliness, companies still want to protect their most precious assets: users and their data. They might join working groups but still they rather play by their own rules. It is disappointing to say the least.
All the mentioned initiatives just lead to confusion. We can’t be sure if we mean the same thing when talking about data portability anymore. It’s probably best to abandon that term and just focus on single issues. Can I export my profile or can it just be accessed by a third party? Are open standards used or proprietary technologies? You get the picture.
confusion, data portability, diso, facebook, google, myspaceShare This
Published by Carsten Pötter May 7th, 2008
in General.
Earlier this year I felt quite alienated from blogs. I skimmed through them for news but didn’t really enjoy reading them. Many (tech) bloggers didn’t offer much value for readers, no new perspective on news or an original thought. And I guess, it’s not too far-fetched to say, they were merely re-posting press releases. Not everyone, not all the time. But can you really offer value if your blog has more than 20 new posts each day? Don’t get me wrong, this blog is probably not the most unique, thought provoking one either. But that’s up to you - the reader - to decide.
I don’t even think blogs have to be super original or authors have to be brilliant writers. They just have to give me the impression they have spent more than five minutes reading and writing about a topic. It’s not really much I am asking for. Fortunately, there are some new tech and social media blogs around that cover news more in depth, provide an opinion on the topic, basically have a conversation. The bloggers are enthusiastic, passionate, and often critical. Blogs worth reading. And it seems there is a new interesting blog around each day. That’s good. I enjoy reading blogs again.
The ubiquitous Louis Gray is a good source for discovering new quality blogs. He has even posted three articles on blogs he recommends. It’s a really good choice and the blogs cover a wide range of topics. I have been subscribed to some of them before reading Louis’ posts, though most of his recommendations show up in my feed reader by now. So go and read Louis’ posts and check out the blogs. Start from there and don’t be afraid to subscribe to blogs that have just one or two hundred feed subscribers. Mostly those blogs are new and basically the number of subscribers says nothing about the quality of the blog. Well, usually.
blogs, louis gray, social mediaShare This
Published by Carsten Pötter May 3rd, 2008
in OpenID.
For Saturday evening just three quick notes about OpenID related news from Germany:
- Dennis Blöte of event calendaring service Venteria has launched a Ruby on Rails based OpenID server called masquerade. You can have a look at the code here.
Dennis has also launched an OpenID provider as a demo application which works rather well. It’s also one of the first providers supporting Attribute Exchange. And it seems to also support VeriSign’s SeatBelt plugin. Really good.
- OpenID provider xlogon has supported the Verein Deutscher Bibliothekare (Society of German Librarians) to enable its website with OpenID. The society needed a convenient way for granting members access to a protected area of its website (see press release, German, PDF).
The society and xlogon also provide a step by step introduction to OpenID on the society’s website. I think it’s crucial to explain a new login system to members as it helps to raise acceptance. Well done.
- Oliver Wagner has co-authored an article on the pros and cons of OpenID for the print magazine Das Wirtschaftsstudium (Economic Studies). The magazine focuses on education and career opportunities for students of economic studies. So a different audience will know about OpenID soon. the article can be downloaded already (German, PDF).
germany, masquerade, openid, xlogonShare This
Published by Carsten Pötter May 2nd, 2008
in OpenID and Open Standards.
MyBlogLog is becoming the most talked about service on this blog, I guess. Maybe I should make it a weekly feature. 
Well, what’s the news of today then? MyBlogLog is an OpenID provider now. And no, sadly it’s not a relying party as well.
Users who want their MyBlogLog profile URL to be an OpenID identifier have to opt-in at the Yahoo! OpenID site. So it is no surprise that this implementation provides the same features as Yahoo!’s (see my post about it). It also means that users don’t have to log in with their complete profile URL (http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/memebers/username) but can shorten the OpenID to mybloglog.com. OpenID 2.0 and directed identity make it possible.
Also interesting to note is the blog post about MyBlogLog’s OpenID support by Shreyas Doshi, product manager for Yahoo!’s OpenID initiative:
With this change, we have also eliminated the only-one-custom-OpenID-identifier per-account restriction. This means that you can select both your Flickr photostream AND your MyBlogLog profile URL as your OpenID identifiers, in addition to creating a pretty me.yahoo.com identifier.
Can we speculate about del.icio.us and Upcoming OpenID identifiers as well now? More providers? Please become relying parties!
By the way, MyBlogLog also added a nice FOAF icon next to the vCard and hCard icons on profiles. They heard you, Robert. 
And Digg?
Meanwhile Digg has added XFN support to user profiles and RDFa to submitted stories. Good to see further implementations of open standards on Digg. Maybe we will eventually see OpenID support. Announcements have been made more than once.
digg, mybloglog, openid, rdfa, xfn, yahooShare This
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