Google, MySpace, and Facebook Open Up???

There is currently a "lands grab" going on in the social computing space that was started by the whole Data Portability initiative -- unfortunately the stakes being driven into the ground are centered around proprietary solutions (APIs) . Two conflicting schools of thought are emerging related to this subject. Google, MySpace, and Facebook believe that a SINGLE STORE will be used to house all of your social presence -- regardless of where you access it from. And, of course, each one of these guys believes that they can own the STORE --- which is exactly what puts each of their solutions at odds with each other (and other existing solutions and standards). The Data Portability initiative sees things a bit differently. Specifically, your data is housed GLOBALLY (without single ownership of a DATA STORE), and they seek to provide common ways to access and update the information in a distributed manner.

On the larger front, it is interesting to note that Google by itself does not really have a USER BASE to share, regardless of their CONNECT initiative. However, I believe this signals a MAJOR SHIFT for them from casual visitors (i.e. users of their search engine) to registered users with associated profile data. This is initially fed by iGOOGLE and ORKUT, but I think GOOGLE will now focus VERY HEAVILY on "profiling" the world's user base...

Stay tuned as I believe this is opportunistic for all users as well as Zude!