Friday, May 16, 2008

Data Portability: It’s The New Walled Garden

I am so technically challenged that I can't, as they say, "play the radio", but that doesn't mean that I am not interested in such things or that I am not as fascinated as the next guy by the pace of change and innovation. I am also fascinated by the issues that arise as a result.

Case in point: Data Portability: It’s The New Walled Garden, a post on TechCrunch, an enormously popular blog (and deservedly so) headed up by Michael Arrington.

If you read the article, you will quickly see that there is an intellectual tug-of-war going on about the personal data that you and I provide to a site. Does that data remain only in that site (the walled garden) or can it be taken and moved to another site? It quickly becomes an interesting debate about "rights" and "privacy" and who "owns" what.

Arrington is an icon as an observer of all things silicon and so is Robert Scoble who has his own stump called Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger. Scoble works at FastCompany and among other things has a cool gig they call ScobleizerTV.

One of the fun things about blogs, as all blog junkies know, is following along when folks get into a healthy debate and start firing word salvos from their industrial strength keyboards. Such is the case between these two guys on this subject, and the last time I looked, there were over 120 comments from readers.

Most of us are probably too torn between the NBA playoffs, the NHL playoffs and watching the Yankees fall into last place to have the time to read all the comments, but it is worth the trip just to read the dueling geeks comments to each other.

Enjoy.

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