Data Portability: A New Answer to Integration for a Web 2.0 World

Today, a broad variety of Internet-based applications such as Flickr and Facebook are now available. They allow users to maintain profiles, participate in communities, create and post content, and perform a wide variety of other tasks. Some applications even mashup business logic and services from different sources. Tim O’Reilly, a well-known Silicon Valley investor and blogger, has defined this new phenomenon as follows:
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")
A basic level of standardization is often the first step and is an important requirement for more powerful data integration services to emerge. In other words, data portability is the precursor to data integration. Today, new organizations and committees aimed at standardizing representation of data on the Internet are already beginning to make data portability a reality.
New Standards Emerge
Dataportability.org is one of the more interesting groups driving data portability today. Originally, this organization focused on putting users in control of their own data, as it accumulated across various Internet-based services. However, the organization now has a broader goal, and champions overall standards for Web data portability. Let’s take a quick look at some of them.
OpenID. OpenID aims to be a free and simple way to use a single digital identity across the Web, and has been adopted by Yahoo, AOL, Google, Microsoft, MySpace, Orange, France Telecom and many other providers. More than half a billion people now have an OpenID identifier, which should further encourage active adoption of this standard.
OAuth. OAuth is defined as a simple way to publish and interact with protected data on the Internet.
RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a dialect of XML that is often used to share content on the Internet, signified by the orange RSS icon you’ll spot on numerous sites.
CMIS for content integration and SSE for file sharing.
OPML. OPML stands for Outline Processor Markup Language. It’s closely related to RSS, and is often used to share RSS subscription lists amongst readers and aggregators, which typically allow users to export and import RSS subscriptions and Web bookmarks as an OPML file.
A Data OASIS
Dataportability.org is just one of many organizations promoting standardization of data on the Internet. OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is another prominent player and has sponsored many other standards, most notably CMIS or Content Management Interoperability Services.

As content and services providers continue to embrace the Web as their platform, the same data portability and integration problems that emerged in the enterprise will appear again. New Internet-based tools and services that can connect disparate data islands and providing transparent and secure access to Internet data regardless of where it is stored will be essential to making Web content and services truly accessible - and standardizing data-related format and protocols will be a critical first step.

Interesting new standards such as OpenID, OAuth, CMIS and others have already begun to emerge. These standards are a huge step forward, but much more must be done to improve these standards and ensure they are supported by new and existing Internet-based services. Until this is accomplished, data integration in the Internet will remain a big issue. However, a big problem is usually a big opportunity in disguise, and many companies will undoubtedly rise to the challenge and fill this important need.