Has Open-Technology Won? Is the Web THE Platform?

If we have the ‘template’ to optimise our websites (ie Google-style), what’s to stop the development of individual optimisation in this next phase of the web’s OPEN development?

If individual social networks (technically known as Contexts) are facilitating the portability and transparency of individual data (technically known as nodes), then individuals can theoretically be evaluated by the number (and quality) of links to their identity (for argument sake the identity is real and not fantisized).

Mash this up with something like Google’s Knol application, which is essentialy a Wiki written by known or recognised professionals, and the concept of optimising or scoring an individual (and their personal brand) based on a social graph check-list becomes very real, very quickly.

This is just one example of the billions of data combinations which will become apparent to the development community in a global, open platform environment

OpenSocial, OpenID, OAuth, AtomEnabled and even the recently announced Higgins Project, are all manifestations of this rush towards a data portability regime. In the name of convenience, security and even higher rates of growth, proprietory systems are being forced to reconsider the longevity of their model. None more so than FaceBook, with its proprietory mark-up language and application development. Does it hold out against the Google-led OpenSocial platform, and ignore the economies of scale which favour OpenSocial, and bank on its application-rich community as a competitive IP advantage?

Projects like OpenSocial and OpenID 2.0 are ambitious, but they represent a giant leap in the data portability agenda. However, while this Tsunami gathers momentum internationally, aided by the development of the OpenID Foundation, which is systematically setting up chapters in local markets, what are the implications for local publishers in particular?

If an OpenID Provider was to set-up shop in Australia, which of the major publishers would subscribe and offer OpenID functionality as an option for sign-in purposes? Is the IAB or AIMIA equiped to articulate the consequences for advertisers of a ‘user-centric’ view of digital media, in which OpenSocial is just one change of many to take place in the next year?

While social networks will dominate the data portability issue over the short-to-medium term, the more interesting step is the transfer of personal data across competing and complimentary ecommerce and media domains, using a type of i-card or digital fingerprint (dare I say it, a browser-based cookie ID) which verifies previous transaction and browsing behaviour. Mix this with an individual’s global social graph and the appropriate ad-serving technology and you begin to appreciate just how under-valued Google stock is at the moment.