MySpace announced its "Data Availability" initiative this morning -- a service the company says is the first stepping stone toward its larger data portability plan.
The call was headed by Chris
DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder; Amit Kapur, COO; and Jim Benedetto,
SVP of technology, who described their excitement over MySpace's role in creating a more dynamic, social Internet.
With the Data Availability initiative, MySpace users will be able to share their profile content throughout the Internet. What this means is, eventually, rather than re-creating profiles across the Web, users will be able to port their profile data onto each new Website and social service they use. "Your personal
online social profile will become your Internet address," said DeWolfe.
The initiative is being built around open standards and is currently deploying OAuth, an open protocol that allows secure API authentication. "We feel open standards are key to a Web without islands," said Benedetto. "Today MySpace is no longer an independent island of data on the Web."
The execs assured us that users will be able to manage how data
is made
available through a centralized location on the site. Data that users can make available include
basic personal information, photos, videos, and their Friends lists.
"Now users can update their profiles on MySpace and dynamically share
that information on other sites they care about," said Kapur. Currently, those
sites include Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), Twitter, Photobucket, and eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY), but the execs said
they'll be adding more to their roster in the future.
While the execs hailed this as the initiative that's going to change the structure of the Internet, it, of course, triggers some concerns over private data. As yet, there's no reason to throw our hands in the air screaming about privacy invasions, as this -- unlike Facebook's Beacon the First -- is an opt-in program that allows users to control whether or not to start or stop sharing their data.
However, when prodded about whether the participating sites will be able to run advertisements based on user data, DeWolfe side-stepped the question, instead saying, "The thing MySpace gets out of this is we're able to promote a more open and social Internet... As the largest social
network, we believe the more open and social the Internet becomes the better it is
for MySpace." MySpace, or MySpace's revenues? Time will determine that when the service rolls out in the coming weeks.
This rollout will also determine if we as users are as jazzed about data portability as the Web Gods are telling us we are. Some of us may simply prefer to manage our individual identities across the Web on our own -- tedious as it may be.
— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution
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