What is "data portability" and why do I need it?

There has been some buzz about data portability lately in the social media world amongst us geeky types, but very few people outside the industry have heard about it. And this is definitely something that affects everyone. Think of all that time we have spent on Facebook posting photos, sending messages to friends, building out your list of contacts, posting links, etc. It's like we have settled into this great apartment and taken the time to make it our own. We decorated, we met our neighbors, we bought a sweet couch that fits perfectly in the corner. And we have accumulated stuff. LOTS OF STUFF. Even if we are in a amazing apartment, we will most likely want to move at some point. Moving is a pain in the butt, but we could just hire some movers and they come in and grab everything, and probably break a few vases, but for the most part you get to start over with all your old stuff in a new home that may work even better for you.

Now imagine that you can't take your stuff with you. You have to throw it all away and buy new stuff. You are never going to move. EVER. The amount of time it takes go out and recreate what you had before is just plain prohibitive. That's what it's like on Facebook right now. Just imagine that they make a decision that violates your privacy so terribly (like tracking what you buy on Amazon and telling all your friends without you knowing about it... yes, it has happened) that you decide you never want to go back and that Facebook is dead to you. You are screwed. Facebook has you. You will live with the violation of privacy because there isn't much you can do about it.

Data portability gives you the ability to do something about it. It means that all your data is portable, you can go join a new site and take your data with you. Moving all your stuff and making new friends may be hard, but at least it will be POSSIBLE.

In short, data portability is freedom. We need it because we want to be free.

Right now a lot of your data is portable on Searchles, everything is accessible through RSS feeds that are open to the public. But that doesn't mean it's easy. There need to be a few standards created in the industry before it is truly easy. But we are working on it!

A Searchles Love Poem

Roses are red
Dubya is witty
Macs are white
PC's aren't as pretty

I do not like
Green eggs and spam
Whether mortgage refinancing
Or "enhancements" for man

iPhone's are unlocked
The crackberry's are down
Reality TV is the blackhole
In which I shall drown

I was without valentine
And as it relates
Even yahoo won't get
Into bed with bill gates

Oh fair meltdown, thankfully
Thy name is not subprime
Just need a sweet sweet site
Where I can pass the time

And then I found searchles
And searchles found you
You posted those articles
On Police Academy 2

It was love at first avatar
We commented like crazy
You added me as a friend
Like Demi Moore loves Swayze

Your posts in my recaps
My homepage, my dreams
I think I've been looking
Too long at this screen....no seriously, I should step away from this computer before this reaches a whole new level of cheese, I'm outta here. HAAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY SEARCHLES USERS! Here's a sappy Searchles TV channel to get you in the mood...

UGC Strategies Score for Ad-revenue, Searchles Social Platform for Media Brings Greatest Hits to Total Telecom

Fantabulous news. This fine February we’ve expanded our partnership with global communications site, Total Telecom. Additional user-generated tag clouds on both the Finance and Network & Services sections of their site are a follow-up to the strong performance of the tag cloud we deployed on the site’s Telecom, Media & Entertainment (TME) section this past November. This strategic partnership has brought about a jump in page views (more than double! that means twice as many!) and an increase in ad-revenue based upon the highly targeted content our social media tools provide – bringing smiles across miles to the UK-based site AND their advertisers AND their users.

The tag clouds pull directly from the corresponding Searchles groups generated by our users with a wide array of interests. Clicking on a tag leads readers to an integrated page of user-aggregated search results corresponding to the appropriate Total Telecom section (TME, Finance, so on…so forth). This UGC solution for online publishers provides not only higher traffic across their ads, but also the potential to charge higher ad premiums due to the highly targeted content populating the social news page. We also offer online publishers more in-depth, customizable tools to engage and monetize their targeted audience with our Social Discovery set of media solutions – described in more detail on our Partners page HERE (please note shiny new Social Discovery video if you prefer to take the audio-visual route).