Facebook, Google And Plaxo Join The DataPortability Workgroup

“After publishing an invitation to Facebook to join the DataPortability Working Group January 4, we never thought that Facebook would accept it. Today changes everything you’ve ever thought about social-networking data and lock-in before, because today Facebook, Google and Plaxo have joined the Dataportability Workgroup.”Does this mean we are a step closer to the ultimate ‘Killer App’; a step beyond what Plaxo Pulse is offering?Will Google take full advantage of Facebook’s new stance and create the ultimate shopping complex?I live in a regional area, and when I need something, I walk over to the local shopping strip. There’s a butcher shop there, a newsagent’s and a real nice lady down the end runs a florist. On days when I’m high on life and one of the team has just made a good deal or something, I’ll wander down and buy my wife a bunch of flowers. I never go there just to roam and look in the windows; my mission to the strip shops always centres on a specific aim.Used to be that I lived in a big suburb and when the weather was too hot or too cold, or if I just needed to get out for a bit, I’d jump in the car and drive to the major shopping centre. Boy, those complexes have every shop imaginable, and some you hadn’t really thought about until you see them and their logo or big flashing sign trips a thought you’d been harboring for a while. For instance, I’d see the jeweler’s and remember that I had to get a new link on my watch, or perhaps, walking past the Kmart, I’d remember that I needed some superglue. I would even bump into some of my friends and have a chat. Point is, unlike my trip to the strip shops, I’d go to the complex to browse and wander, confident that the place was so full up with stuff that there’d be something there that would make my trip worthwhile.I reckon the whole strip shopping thing is a great analogy for how internet businesses are evolving. Google success has been based on this idea and sites such as Facebook etc are realising that, in order to grab that rainy-hot-boring-day-let’s-go for-a-wander audience, they need to open up and morph into major internet shopping complexes.Whether or not this is good for smaller sites who are out there in the strip shopping precincts of the net is another debate for another day. We simply need to recognise that this is the way major players in the market are heading and prepare our strategies for marketing etc around that knowledge.2009 could read:I went shopping today and walked out with a new stereo and a new job!