Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

Before I ask the question, I’m 100% behind any initiative that supports open standards and best practices. Segala’s entire business model is based on it. I also support the idea of being able to port your data from one application/platform to another application/platform.

Ok, so now that I’ve got the disclaimer out of the way, what exactly, is the DataPortability group going to do?

I’ve noticed that the Web site provides hyperlinks which point to pages that say ‘contribute to the various standards communities’, but those pages just point to a list of links which point to wikipedia entries.

Then you have Robert Scoble’s video (opens in a different window) on the main index page. The explanatory title says ‘Watch Robert Scoble explain the DataPortability story’, but all I see is Robert talking about his removal from Facebook. It doesn’t tell me what the DataPortability group is going to deliver apart from goodwill.

I’m not against this group or the ideas they hold dear to their heart, but unless they actually put something more meaningful together, they’ll continue to have circular conversations that everyone is in agreement with. Getting organisations to agree to the concept isn’t good enough in my experience.

My recommendation

What I’d like to see, are some best practice guidelines which organisations can sign up to. Perhaps create a Trustmark (visual badge) to demonstrate their commitment and conformance to those guidelines. Otherwise it’s just a one-way conversation with no proof that organisations intend to permit the seamless portability of users’ data.

I still don’t want Facebook to change my email address to text as that’ll make it way too easy for companies like Plaxo to harvest and SPAM me. Please note that I’m not referring to Robert here. I believe he used a test account to demonstrate a point. Plaxo is in the wrong, Robert just made a silly mistake in my opinion.

Remember that Facebook is protecting users by not allowing people to easily port information, whether that was/is their motivation or not. If none of us have the answer, how can we expect Facebook to make such a massive change over night.

Protecting our privacy and enabling us to extract our data from an application are two entirely different things.

Now I can see why Plaxo were busy harvesting personal contact details belonging to users on Facebook, without anyone’s permission. They were looking to bump their numbers to increase their valuation. Robert, I’d love your take on this now.

For those of you still saying that it was ok for Robert and Plaxo to do this.

1. I gave my personal contact details to Facebook.
2. I did not give them to any individual.
3. I did not give any company or any friend permission to disclose my personal contact details to anyone.

My friendship was violated whether some of you think it was right or not.

Some people hide their personal details from the world because they only want their friends to see them. Did Robert respect their decision by not harvesting their details with the view to giving them to another company?

According to the New York Times

AN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Plaxo, a site that helps users keep their friends’ contact information up to date, is considering a sale of the company for as much as $200 million, media reports said on Thursday.

Plaxo is seeking as much as $100 million and has hired Revolution Partners to advise it on a deal, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the offering.

Private Equity Hub, a blog edited by Thomson Financial editor-at-large Daniel Primack, said Plaxo was considering an unsolicited offer of about $200 million, but had not retained any bank to advise it.

Officials from Plaxo and Revolution could not be reached for comment.

Fast-growing social networks like privately held Facebook and LinkedIn might be interested in acquiring Plaxo despite its “flat growth” in 2006 to 2007, said Michael Osterman, head of messaging research and consulting firm Osterman Research.

“It might make sense for a consumer-oriented social network (like Facebook) to acquire a business-oriented social network” like Plaxo, he said.

Osterman said he expects more social networking sites to acquire each other over the next 18 months as these Web sites seek to expand ways in which users can stay connected to friends, family and business contacts.

Microsoft Corp took a small stake in Facebook for $240 million last year, and could also be a potential suitor for Plaxo, according to Osterman. LinkedIn has been the subject of buyout speculation, including reports it was at one point a target for News Corp..

Emily Riley, an analyst at Jupiter Research, said a sale would make sense for a “mid-tier” social network like Plaxo because it is difficult to survive independently unless without unique features or loyal customers.

Plaxo has raised over $20 million in venture capital funding to date from backers including Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, Cisco Systems and DAG Ventures.

The company helps users synchronize address books and calendar data. When a friend changes their phone number or other contact details, the site automatically updates that information in a user’s address book.

Plaxo programs also work in conjunction with popular e-mail and messaging systems, such as Microsoft Outlook e-mail and AOL’s instant messaging.

Plaxo said in mid-2007 that it had signed up more than 15 million users, although the number of currently active users is unknown.

(Reporting by Anupreeta Das and Ritsuko Ando, editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Source: New York Times

If this is true, can anyone defend Plaxo now?

I’ve been interviewed about my opinion regarding Web 3.0 on numerous occasions and thought it was time to write about it here as a way of drawing a line in the sand for future reference. It was actually Jason Calacanis’ twitter message about his definition that inspired me to put my thoughts on paper, so to speak.

According to Jason

Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.

I remember saying something very similar quite some time ago, but I’ve since changed my mind. There must be more to it than that. Before getting straight into Web 3.0, I’ll start by providing my brief definition of Web 2.0.

From a technology perspective

Web 2.0 can be described as technology which enables end users to create content on the Web more quickly, easily and cheaply. Examples of such technology include blogs, wikis and platforms such as flickr.

From a marketing perspective

Enabled by technology, Web 2.0 can be described as consumer behaviour influenced by consumers. We no longer live in an era where brand owners are in total control of their own marketing. Consumers now find it quicker, easier and cheaper to communicate their opinion about products and services, which in turn, influences other consumers.

What is Web 3.0?

One thing is for sure, it has got to be something more than the ability to do all of the above, better. Let’s call that Web 2.5 service pack x. Gifted individuals who deliver higher quality content is incremental and continuous in my opinion. So I don’t think we should draw a line in the sand to define a specific milestone for people’s ability to do something better.

Jeremiah Owyang thinks that Jason is right just because Google appear to have a similar opinion. He says

By chance Jason’s definition completely matches what Google (his competitor now) just launched. Because this is a Google product, could we expect search results to favor Google products that are correctly optimized to be found over Mahalo or Wikipedia?

Jeremiah’s first commentator responded by saying

To give something a label like web 3.0 there has to be some major innovation behind it. Minus Googles credibility this product is not bringing anything new. This is more like baby steps in that direction.

I agree.

According to Udi Manber on Google’s official blog to which Jeremiah refers

The web contains an enormous amount of information, and Google has helped to make that information more easily accessible by providing pretty good search facilities.

What a load of crap. Google doesn’t ‘make information any more accessible’ than Excite did during the 90’s. It certainly doesn’t provide ‘pretty good search results’.

The only thing that Google has done for search is turn it into a mass of untrustworthiness. What they do well is mix organic search results with those that have been paid for. What’s worse, is that Google gives precedence to the highest bigger.

Don’t get me started on Web sites that are created specifically to market products they don’t sell, but instead, redirect you to Web sites that do sell them.

Google could just as easily provide more information about Web sites to allow users make better-informed decisions based on the suitability of content on each Web site. The only information it provides (admittedly the only information that any search engine provides today) is the title and description. How do you know which ones to trust? The answer is, you don’t!

My definition of Web 3.0

There is a philosophy enabled by a technology that’s not yet understood or utilized properly and I think the realization of that, should be referred to as Web 3.0. That philosophy is called the Semantic Web. The technology can be described as ‘interoperable metadata that lies beneath each Web page’ (for the techies it’s called Resource Description Framework). It’s not all about RDF, but it is pretty central to the conversation.

By reading additional metadata about Web sites, Google could provide end users with more information from the search results. Wouldn’t it be useful to know which Web sites are appropriate for minors, accessible to disabled users or mobile friendly? Wouldn’t you also like to know at times, which Web sites adopt advertising and marketing best practices, adopt privacy best practices, or have been independently verified by a medical authority?

This is all possible with the aid of metadata. That’s what I call better content discover based on trusted search results. The problem is, search engines such as Google choose not to read it.

That’s what I call Web 3.0

[Update: 00:50] I forgot to mention that Jason and I have discussed a possible collaboration. I believe there’s a place for Mahalo. I also think there’s a need to improve all major search engines (including Mahalo) based on open standards.

I picked up an interesting concept via Sam Sethi’s twitter today. It involves implementing white lists using OpenID and FOAF profiles to help resolve the issue with online identity.

I don’t wish to commentate on OpenID or FOAF. I do however, want to voice my concern over the misuse of the word ‘identity’ and how it is being associated with OpenID and other so-called solutions to solve identity.

OpenID , is a central register of user names and passwords. So, rather than having say, 10 different user names and passwords for 10 different Web sites, you create an OpenID account and associate it with the 10 user names. That is of course, assuming the 10 Web sites support OpenID by connecting to your account.

FOAF stands for Friend of a Friend. The FOAF project is creating a Web of machine-readable pages describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do.

According to Steve Ivy to which Sam refers in his twitter message

In less than a nutshell, the DIG is using the relationship data in their members’ FOAF files to build a whitelist of users (identified by their OpenID) who can comment on the site.

According to the image on Steve’s blog, which I think he borrowed from Tim Berners-Lee (looking at the file name when I save it)

OpenID Login proves identity

According to Dan Connolly from the W3C

As Simon Willison notes, OpenID solves the identity problem, not the trust problem.

I have to take issue with their use of the word ‘identity’.

OpenID does not prove identity. Identity has a universal meaning to just about everyone on the planet. So why is there so much confusion on the Web?

What is Identity?

When asked for ID by a car rental company for example, you know without fail, that they’re asking for either your passport or drivers license.

Why? Well, because before you were issued with a passport or drivers license, you had to prove ‘who’ you say you are. You did this by getting a trusted third party such as a solicitor or police officer who knows you, to verify your identity. Your identity as confirmed and documented by a trusted third party, was then sent to the appropriate authority for final processing.

Going back to OpenID, you can setup an account under any name and associate it with any number of profiles. None of this information is verified by anyone. Does this prove you are who you say you are? In other words, does it prove your identity? The answer is no. It does prove your identity if by that you mean something entirely different to what the vast majority of the population already believe identity to mean.

I have only witnessed one person articulate the same opinion as me and that’s Saul Klein. Saul understands identity, he co-founded TRUSTe which is the most widely recongnised Trustmark for privacy on the Internet. Saul articulated his opinion about identity after a Garlic presentation at Essential Web, where he was on the panel to whom Garlik pitched. I was on a different panel but was dying to quiz Garlik about their terminology.

How to solve the problem

Just like we do with passports and drivers licenses in the offline world, we can have our company and personal details verified by a trusted third party such as Experian or Equifax. I chose these companies because they already hold personal details and credit scores for most of us.

We could then associate that verified information with a technical solution such as Content Labels (known as POWDER by the W3C for political reasons), FOAF or some other kind of Certificate which can be recognized by a browser or other tool. Only then can you solve the ‘identity’ problem. By default, it would mean we’re half-way to resolving the trust issue at the same time.

If you consider the passport scenario… Experian and Equifax act as the solicitor or police officer who knows you. The Content Label/Certificate authority act as the passport office by issuing the proof of identity.

I once wrote to all my LinkedIn connections informing them of my decision to no longer update my profile, whilst asking them to connect with me on Facebook if they genuinely wanted to connect.

So, here I am again with another social network to avoid. I’m no longer accepting invitation requests to connect on Plaxo, or any other social network for that matter. I simply don’t have the time to update profiles or maintain communications on each one. I only use Plaxo for backing up my contacts anyway, full stop.

As I’ve previously explained, Facebook is my shop window into which you can see who I am, who I know and what I stand for. You can also see what I look like dressed as a Chicken running down Oxford Circus at 12am. That is of course, assuming I’ve enabled you to see those comprimising pictures using the extremely granular privacy settings.

Until now, I’ve accepted connection requests only from people known to me or known to people I trust. However, in order to make BIMA, Segala and me more accessible, I’m now opening up my network to anyone who wishes to connect with me.

Why anyone? Well, because if I’m not connected to an individual or company, it’s very likely I should be if they’ve come across me via a blog, twitter, event etc. Should some nut case end up in the circle of trust I’ll simply remove them. On Twitter I voiced my intention to which Paul Jacobson replied

@PaulWalsh If you open up to everyone then that means the rest of us aren’t special anymore … 05:37 PM September 18, 2007 from im in reply to PaulWalsh

I hope Paul doesn’t think this now that I’m opening up the small gates which hold back only a few unsuspecting Facebookers. The truth is, I’m connected to 469 people on Facebook. That doesn’t even come close to the number of people I know. I’m sure there must be a few people who know me but who are (until now I hope) unknown to me. The same applies to everyone, you can’t know everyone who knows you. So, maintaining my network is quite easy for me.

I’m pretty confident that either Facebook or a third party developer will enable us to build communities out of our network. For example, I’d like separate communities for BIMA, Segala, Jaipur, Digital, Events, Programmes I advise on, etc. There’s likely to be an overlap which is fine, but at least I’d have the ability to communicate with them separately.

I don’t think I’d create communities for business and personal because then you’re forcing yourself to say who’s a friend and who isn’t, which in my opinion, goes against the grain of the social graph.

It’s much easier to open up your network after studying it whilst closed, than it is to close it and end up kicking people out.

Read in-depth article about how I perceive and use Facebook.

So, if you wish to connect on Facebook, then feel free to to do so now.