DataPortability – Connect, Control, Share, Remix from Smashcut Media on Vimeo.

The news that the biggest players are going to support this is really a watershed. They have listened to and agreed with the thoughts of some of the more seasoned thinkers in this space. The bottom line is that people own their own attention and this is a step in the right direction to supporting peoples rights around their own creations. What’s cool is that it’s not a government forcing a regulation down someone’s throat or a massive scandal and outcry,.. well maybe they were nudged a little;), but the momentum was already in the air, as can be seen with last week’s release of Yahoo supporting openID across their properties.

It’s also a very international effort, spanning Europe, USA and S.America (as far as i’ve been informed of). Hope Asia will be involved in this too. Locally for me, Mediamatic has been pushing forward their own DataPortability project with Federated Social Networks, although this was before the big news of last week. The question this leaves in the air is if people will use this option much? Will it drive competition more towards the interface and experience if the data can bounce all over the place?