OpenSocial but nobody's really opening up

Everybody seems to have joined the data portability group and appear to be excited about the OpenID and OpenSocial initiatives. But the reality is that a lot of backroom deal making is going on. Most of the vendors who have joined these initiatives are more interested in plucking each other's social graphs than actually opening up their own networks. For example, the OpenSocial initiative is turning out to be little more than an OpenWidget standard. Is this all we're going to get?


Watch Google's PR on OpenSocial

The reality is that the social networks see their member data as one of their most valuable assets. They're not going to be in a rush to open them up. LinkedIn is probably the one exception as it allows services like NotchUp to import user data. Plaxo seems to be a little more open too. But for the most part the social networks are happy keeping their worlds private. Will it always be like this? Hopefully not. I believe that it is only a matter of time before the social networks are forced to open up and let their users carry their own data out of the networks. It'll happen as users get more and more social network fatigue. I believe that in a few years we will be able to carry our social graphs wherever we want to - whether it be to other networks or to other platforms.