To (Web2.0) Developers: I Want Control of My Data, I Want to Write My Own Rules

I sure am with Doc Searls and Dave Winer on this one. I want control of my own data. And I want to write my own rules on how others may and may not use my data.

First because if you tell me I have no friends simply because my data is not on your platform, you're not getting it. I am the landscape, you are the map. And the map does not get to say what reality is, just what it thinks it looks like.
So I would like Facebook, Amazon, Flickr, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Google and all of you out there, to sign my Terms of Service at the same time I am signing yours. True communication is, per Habermas, based on symmetry, a situation where there are no power differences interfering during the exchange. We will have to mutually agree on how you may use my data, and how I may use your services that are based on that data. You have your rules for using your service, well I have mine when it comes to adding my data to your service.

Second because I want my tools to become smarter, a lot smarter. And it is only me that can provide the context and data that allows tools to be smarter. I need to be in control of my data for you to let your tools be smarter. I need to be the owner of e.g. my favourites/wishlists and preferences for you to really give me good recommendations. Because I am holding back right now, as I don't get to keep control over my data. I am willing to share a lot more data about myself and my actions, a whole lot more. If you think I am exposing a lot of myself already, think again. It ain't half of it. It ain't ten percent of it. And of that small percentage your service only has access to a small fragment. I am prepared to share a whole lot more, as indeed I already do in each and every conversation I have with other people. But only within trusted circles I define, context specific and situation aware. That is how my tools, i.e. your services, need to become smarter: granularity in trust, and context specific and situation aware permissions. So I can increase the richness of my conversations. Having control over my own data is the number one prerequisite for it, otherwise I won't play.

With Facebook applications and the OpenSocial initiative by Google et al openness 'is now the new black', and the new sine quae non of competition in this space. Let's take that one step further. You're opening up your system's structures, now do the logical next thing: let me control my own data, and let me set the rules of how you can use that data. I am not petitioning. I will work towards creating that control. With people who get it and want to play. I am merely inviting you to be part of it.

If you provide the code, I provide the relationships, and we both write the rules, we might get something useful (photo from BlogTalk Reloaded fall 2006)

Google Makes Inroads Into Mobile Market

Jyri Engestrom (Jaiku/Google) just pointed me to the fact that Google has announced a major step into the mobile market. Android is the name of a 34 party strong alliance around an Open Source platform for mobile phones. To converge computing and communication more. (Android originally is a mobile start up bought by Google in 2005.)

Google's aim is to earn money with advertising on mobile devices. Original rumours were that Google would introduce a GPhone (like Apple's iPhone). But instead they are enabling everybody in the industry to create their own phones as it were with the Open Handset Alliance.

Jyri summarizes Android's key points in Twitter as:

* Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities
* users will be able to fully tailor the phone to their interests. They can swap out the phone's homescreen, the style of the dialer, or any of the applications
* a developer can combine information from the web with data on an individual's mobile phone -- such as the user's contacts, calendar, or geographic location. With Android, a developer could build an application that enables users to view the location of their friends and be alerted when they are in the vicinity giving them a chance to connect.
* allows devices to communicate with one another enabling rich peer-to-peer social applications

This is very interesting news, and I guess last week's announcement of OpenSocial was not all of it after all.
What I think is key in this news is that Google is creating possibilities for other parties so that they can make money over it doing what they've been always doing: search and advertisements. That is both what OpenSocial and Androids is doing for Google. More also on the Google blog.

Also there is this video about Android on the Google Channel on YouTube:

Afterthought: with OpenSocial and Open Handset Alliance / Android, it is also clear that Open will be the new buzz-word for the coming time in webmarketing. I guess that's good if it helps us to leave the Web2.0, Web3.0, Web x.0 metaphors behind)

Five Years Ago Today, I Started Blogging

Five years ago today I started my blog. Lilia Efimova and David Gurteen encouraged me to do so because they thought it would fit my way of working. They were absolutely right.

In the past five years I have found myself on an accelerated path of learning. The world turned out to be full of interesting, inspiring, challenging, warm, and fun people, that I shared a lot of interests with.

In the past five years I have been privileged to witness ideas turn into companies, the writing of books, the coalescense of ideas into research and PhD's, all as result of the tremendously engaging conversations we build through our blogs. Being witness and part of that journey is an invaluable learning experience.

The past five years have helped earlier ideas and notions on learning, collaborating, creativity (some of those ideas dating back to primary school), take shape and actually turn into practice.

In the past five years the way I make sense of the world has changed dramatically. The number of connections to other people multiplied (and still does), the speed of change increased, and the volume of information exploded. But it is that same multitude of other people that keep that manageable.
You all are my filter, my outside-in lens that helps me make sense of the world. As a result newscasts seem late getting 'breaking news' to me, papers have lost the right to call themselves newspapers. As a result I started sharing more and more info about myself, my behaviour, my patterns. Because it is that sharing that helps make feedback loops, because sharing makes you part of a living network, because it makes both me and you better social filters for eachother.

And we are all still only playing with prototypes, when it comes to the tools we use to enhance our scope, our reach into the world, our ability to be in touch with eachother. I am sure these are still prototypes. When I look at tools like Jaiku, Plazes, Imity to bring our on-line social interaction into our physical environment. When I see how RFID, and its precursor the barcode (e.g. as in Aura) can help create a web of things. When I see the forays into ambient devices and displays, with digital photoframes, ambient lighting, and Nabaztag wifi-bunnies. When I see the incredibly fascinating attempts to lower the barrier to entry for production with e.g. FabLab, as much as we have done for sharing and publishing with social software. When I see that video and photo use is still in its infancy, with things like Photosynth, and multi-touch screens around the corner. When I see how we are making our first baby-steps into 3D environments. Then I see prototypes.

In all this I see prototypes that spell the evolutionary acceleration of diversity that comes with the discovery of a new unfilled realm of possibilities brought to us by digitalization and the increased levels of complexity of systems possible because of the increased connections between us. What cities did for us on regional and geographic scale, digitalization and internet are doing to us all over again. Globally. And it's starting to show.

I can't wait for what the next five years will bring us.
As a three year old I saw the world as an exciting place where treasures and wonderful things were hiding behind each tree and around each corner. I had lost that feeling for a long time, and refound it some eight years ago. For the past five years that sense of wonder was being fed by the cascading effects of this blog. It was and is being fed by you. You're to blame.

In random order: Lilia Efimova, David Gurteen, Jim McGee, Ross Mayfield, Gary Murphy, Jon Husband, Nancy White, Elmine Wijnia, Bryan Alexander, Roland Tanglao, Boris Mann, Felix Petersen, Sebastian Fiedler, Martin Roell, Thomas Burg, Phil Wolff, Marc Canter, Dave Pollard, Jack Vinson, Lee Lefever, Lee Bryant, Riccardo Cambiassi, Anne Bartlett-Bragg, Jyri Engestrom, Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, Colby Stuart, Jonathan Marks, Howard Rheingold, Sebastian Paquet, Stephanie Hendrick, Miguel Cornejo, Fernando Tricas, JJ Merelo, Anjo Anjewierden, Luis Suarez, Bev Trayner, Stuart Henshall, Dina Mehta, Barbara Ganley, Andy Boyd, Chris Messina, Johnnie Moore, Jack Yan, David Wilcox, Barbara Kieslinger, Ralf Klamma, Marc Smith, Denham Grey, Earl Mardle, Ed Mitchell, Gunnar Langemark, Henriette Weber-Andersen, Mark Wubben, Pierre Gorissen, Frank Meeuwsen, Peter Rukavina, Robert Paterson, Martin Dugage, Flemming Funch, Piers Young, Ralf Beuker, Gerrit Eicker, Gerrit Visser, Suw Charman, Stephanie Booth, Tim Bonnemann, and many many many many many more.

You're all to blame for this. You all rock. Thanks.

(This is the cake Elmine baked for me to celebrate ;) )