Data Portability: Where Does the World Stand?

2,000 years ago data was written on papyrus, preserved as well as it could be a reproduced as oft as necessary and only as quickly as one could write. 200 years ago data was pressed into paper and could be reproduced quickly and distributed by hand. 20 years ago data could be saved to a computer and even given to someone else electronically. With the invention of the Internet, data was able to be instantly distributed around the world. Obviously we've come a long way, but we're still got some refining to do...

We have the ability to immediately get data from one place to another, but we're still not able to easily synchronize that data between multiple sources. Luckily, we're making improvements that may solve some of these problems.

Wouldn't it be nice IF...

• You could have one username and one password for everything
• You could save a file once and access it anywhere
• Your contact/personal information could be shared between any website you allow
• ANY data you ever input electronically could be shared between any website you allow

Well, we aren't too far from the capabilities of being able to do that. In fact, there are already solutions to aid some of those "what ifs" in limited form. Big announcements have been made this week, however, that will begin to change the face of the Internet and data portability. While Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others each dedicated themselves this week to portability initiatives, we are going to start seeing strides towards making data easier to access, share, and manage.