It's nice to see everyone joining the portability and open standards bandwagon, and with such breakneck speed. It's also great to see a complete 180° turn for many people involved -- it wasn't too long ago that many of the newly outspoken proponents of these concepts were the ones maintaining and enforcing the walled gardens of social media with an iron fist, holding users and third party services hostage at their leisure.

All the traction this movement has been gaining has made it very easy to get excited -- quite a lot has happened in the last few months, and people are often still lauding some open technology just as its successor or complement is released. It can be quite difficult to keep up with, and amidst all this celebration a few important concepts have been lost or sidelined. I think we've come to a point where we all need to slow down for a moment and take a good look at the recent technologies and instead of blindly celebrating them, start asking some tough questions: like what are the implications of this, and why are they being created so quickly in the first place?

If you chat with industry pundits, read the blogs, even open up a major newspaper, you'll quickly notice that data portability is all the rage (the general concept, not the 'DataPortabilty' working group). People love talking about the new efforts in interconnectedness on the internet -- the ability to meld content and relationships across social media outlets, and the positive strides the industry is making. If you talk to a product manager or blogger 'in the scene' for a few minutes minutes, you'll note how similarly they mimic an eleventeen year old girl talking about puppies, ponies and rainbows ( and ice cream! and unicorns! and rainbow sprinkles! oh my!).

Looking beyond the gloss of portability, there is a much more pervasive méme to the industry -- the new marketing culture driving the open initiatives, Data Sportability. Before people can even hash out what products really are, we see fancy marketing jargon around corporate initiatives, an endless array of shiny new products and services launched one-after-another, and a figurative pissing contest between large technology companies trying to 'outdo' one another in terms of portability options and open standards. While data portability might be about getting people to join the bandwagon... Data Sportability is everyone trying to have the fanciest and flashiest wagon in the train, with hopes people will flock to it more so they can go off in their own direction.

When people can step back from the celebrations of technology, it is painfully clear that the new push for open data initiatives are not so open, well intentioned, or in many cases not even well thought out. I think it's about time we put an end to Data Sportability and end this trend before any real damage is done.

Over the next few days I'll be releasing a series of articles based on dispelling Data Sportability, using my company FindMeOn as the context. In 2006 we released FindMeOn.com and 'Open Social Network'- a consumer site and set of open standards promising secure, privacy minded social network integration... which was really just a testbed for our 'next generation' social media advertising platform. In late 2007, Groups like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft started releasing similar products, under similar names, and going through all the same 'realizations' and growth spurts as our products.

Common Sense Truths Behind Portability

A preview.

The Open Movement is a Shell Game

Open Source and Open Standards are absolutely meaningless when their point is to sell in proprietary platforms and services. Google, Facebook, Windows, MySpace, etc. are all promoting their platformed versions of portability. This isn't a goodwill effort, this is an arms race for technology, users, and a market leadership position. Corporations are also very much focused on what THEY get out of being open -- not end users; they've done a 180° on portability for a reason, they figured out how to monetize it.

Beware the Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

Being backed by, or creating, a non-profit is nothing more than a PR stunt. Lobbyists have been doing this for yers to mislead consumers on the behalf of the Tobacco and Oil industries. Being a non-profit doesn't mean that you're searching for the cure to cancer, or developing cross-platform software under the MIT license -- it just means that your organization as the organization is not focused on creating corporate profits for itself. Groups like "OpenSocial Foundation" are industry associations of large social media stakeholders and advertisers - they're not coming together to save children, they're coming together to optimize their businesses.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

A lot of portability people mean well - but its important to view these innovations as the struggle they are -- corporations are looking to monetize, technologists are looking to quickly adopt and push forward with every new innovation. When the dust settles and the novelty begins to wear off, a mess is often left behind. In politics, people talk about 'inside the beltway' -- a disconnect between the political system and the people it represents, created by secluded and self-reinforcing culture of its members. Technology is the same way -- technologists have the mindset of early adopters - and people who try to live their lives outwardly across all mediums; the average internet user is vastly different.

I recently got into a heated argument on the DataPortability group's mailing list, when I was incensed by the lack of discussion covering user privacy ramifications of OpenID adoption -- especially in a so-called 'what could go wrong?' panel discussion that was scheduled. From a consumer and corporate perspective, I am deeply troubled by the conflation of online account information and relationships hastily integrated systems promote.

Most people failed see any issue where a large one exists; a small subset of people saw the issue and replied something to the extent of 'well some of us do care enough, and have implemented privacy constraints in our software'. My response: why is this not the default? why isn't everyone adhering? why am I the only one questioning this?

More than meets the eye

People are pushing data portability for a reason - monetizing openness. The monetary layer in data portability isn't in being an open service, or providing a platform service... it's in analyzing and applying cross-network user intelligence for internet advertising. Open platforms aren't about providing a service to users, they're about making money off of users.

They're also about creating new commerce-driven standards. While MySpace, Google, Facebook are big names in Social Media, they're the groups behind the world's most powerful networks - not the people interacting with APIs and building new social media projects. While its nice to see these groups offering some 'standards' for interaction, they're also saying "ok, but you have to play by our rules now!". How different would these Open Standards look like if they were mandated by the widget developers, social media startups, or ad companies / corporate brands who are constantly building new online media projects? These 'standards' are concepts and hooks defined by benevolent dictators -- not by the people who make applications.

In PostgreSQL ( < 8.3 I believe ), if you rename a sequence you don't fully rename it

This is recorded in bug 3619 http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-bugs/2007-09/msg00092.php

While the sequence will be renamed as an object, the metadata won't...

PG stores the sequence name both as the object , and as 'sequence_name' in the sequence itself ( viewable via 'SELECT * FROM sequence' ; i think its in the postgres db catalog too )

Most people won't run into an issue... until you use an ORM which is likely to pull the old sequence name from PG.

after much searching and trying, i found a fix. note: this only works for SMALL databases:

$ pg_dump -U$owner $db > $db.sql
$ psql -Upostgres
psql> DROP DATABASE $db;
psql> CREATE DATABASE $db WITH OWNER = $owner;
psql> \q
$ psql -U$owner $db < $db.sql

yes, that's the amazing fix -- backup up, dropping, and restoring the database. i'm sure there's a better fix out there somewhere -- i just couldn't find it with 2 hours of searching and syntax attempts.

If you can find a better way, LET ME KNOW and I'll update this reference.

I've decided to create a new category on Scalability & Performance

I recently learned that not enough people talk about this - and there are a lot of independent efforts that don't cross communicate.

Since I'm plugged into a lot of misc communities, I decided to start talking about the different efforts in each -- and where there is overlap.

Lori Drew, aka the most evil woman alive, was recently charged by the US Attorney's office in LA.

Drew created the persona of a fake teenage boy on MySpace to bait and bulley her teenage daughter's ex-best-friend. The friend in question hanged herself from the torment.

Wired just ran coverage of the charges with commentary by Jennifer Granick of the EFF.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/myspace-indictm.html

Granick's commentary, unfortunately, is misguided and completely inappropriate. She likens this case to one of a short-term employment contract, where blogging against a corporation is prohibited.

I think they made a very BAD comparison in the article. This has absolutely nothing to do with the terms-of-use example of 'blogging'.

This has more to do with enforcing contract law that has to do with data access and fraud... and possibly touches on the concept of acceptable use.

I don't know if Granick was being sly to elicit public support or completely inept. If its the latter, I hope he does defend Lori Drew so she loses and gets the max sentence.

At the essence, Ms. Drew signed up to MySpace , said "I am this person" and created a bunch of credentials and a persona. None of those were true.
In repeatedly logging into the website, she essentially defrauded MySpace and its users as well.
And in doing so, she also broke the terms of service creating the condition in which she "improperly accessed" the network in accordance with the 'rules' that MySpace set forth with their own network access policy. That's where the technicality came in.

The law was vague in the way its worded, and the US Attorney charged her under essentially a 'hacker' law for improperly accessing the network. The elements are all there: Drew accessed the network, she violated the Terms of Service, and this concept is really in keeping with the 'spirit' of the law -- that computers are accessed by approved people. Drew wasn't the person privileged for the account in question -- the fictitious teenager 'Josh' was.

Better comparisons the EFF should have made where:
- changing your browser identifier from Firefox to Safari
- checking a friend's email for them
- 99.9% of internet spiders that pretend to be another computer or person
- 99.9% of internet search engines, and just about every web2.0 firm that indexes/imports from a website with the slightest infraction of a TOS
- the list goes on.

I'm a bit troubled by the precedent this could set for future situations -- but in this *EXACT* case, I think the law is being applied as it was intended for and should be. Violating the TOS wasn't criminal, but violating the TOS meant she should not access the network anymore -- and that was criminal.

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV.

Today FindMeOn launched SocialMediaStandards.org

I haven't been this excited in years!

( Note: I had a crazy idea to do a performance based presentation @ the web 2.0 meetup -- where I get on stage and act really arrogant like a large Tech firm that forces people to adopt their proprietary standards... then become really nice and talk about Open Processes. That plan did not work out well after a few drinks and a rushed presentation setup. Apologies to all who didn't get the joke ).

For the past few years, I've been running around NYC, SF, BOS and DC -- meeting with agency executives, interactive shops, startups , brands and non-profits.

At first we met over FindMeOn corporate interests - sales, marketing, figuring out how we can work together. As time progressed and meetings turned into friends catching up, I began to realize that our clients and friends were facing the same issues we did: complete and utter chaos when it comes to the way Social Media campaigns are implemented.

From tech companies to advertising firms, and all the shops in between, we were all having the same problems - integrating projects with one another, and eventually with the large networks.

At FindMeOn , we finally decided to do something about this.

Over the past few weeks, I've been piecing together a coalition of Startups, Agencies, Non-Profits and Brands - the people who build and finance Social Media Campaigns, into a new industry group.

We're coming together under a single banner - and hoping others join us - to fix the industry. We're forming the Social Media Standards organization.

Today we live in an age where everyone wants to have a social media campaign - and everyone does. Everyone also has an Open Standard and a Platform API -- even we were one of the earlier people to jump on the trend launching the findmeon protocol and Open Social Network systems in 2006.

Being open is neat, but when everyone has an OpenStandard and API -- which is designed to advance proprietary systems -- being open is pretty much worthless.

In the past week we've seen a deluge of new open standards: MySpace Google Facebook all decided that they'd have the next new hot thing, and tried to outdo themselves. Good for them - but for everyone else, this is nothing short of a nightmare being formed right before our eyes. The fact that these systems are 'Open' does nothing for the fact that they are independent and multiples of one another.

Ever since Facebook's API started to gain traction, the top tech firms have gotten into a pissing match with one another -- each one trying to outdo the others. Every few months, a company announces a brand new "OPEN!" product that not only outdoes their competitors, and the last "open" product they released.

These groups *hate* being open: remember that only one year ago, the same social networks that are embracing DataPortability.org were blocking widgets, disabling accounts, and claiming ownership of user data and experience. To these interests, being "Open" doesn't mean empowering a user -- it means losing control.

Networks shouldn't be demonized though: they want - and deserve - credit for the added value they bring to user generated data. While I believe in Open Source, Open Standards, and that users own their content -- there is definite added value from these networks that undoubtedly belongs to the networks, and networks should be credited for: the metrics and analysis they offer, the modes of communication, the simple fact of friendship context - how a MySpace friendship is inherently different than a Facebook friendship (a notion that FindMeOn.com has been yelping about for years). So social networks want - and deserve - some amounts of control in these interactions.

What Social Networks don't deserve, is to be the only voice in these interactions. Social Media is, at it's essence, social -- involving people and communities. Social Networks actors like users and third party networks/applications are an integral portion of the social dialogue -- and voices that must be heard.

At Social Media Standards, we're setting some goals to bring order to the chaos of Social Media. We're hoping to better represent users and the third party interests in what has become an 'open platforms' and 'open apis' war.

We're not doing this as "FindMeOn" or any one company -- we're doing this as a coalition of companies that are defining the standards *together*.

We're also hoping to create a shared library of code that people can use as the building blocks for social media campaigns. We hope that with a common set of API calls / class structures / database tables, we'll be able to migrate our applications across networks faster when needed -- and be able to better create integration points between our apps.

We're also hoping to build off of each other's knowledge, experience, and expertise.

Our immediate goals are the following:

- Creating a new set of legal standards and agreements - in the vein of understanding and clarity as Creative Commons has introduced - for Social Media website usage.

- Defining a new set of standards for Application Design, Development and Deployment - along with integration points.

- Create new Open Source libraries and frameworks to implement Social Media campaigns across platforms. Support DataPortability.org projects, and create integration points + inter-application protocols that work for us.

- Create new Open Standards for applications to interact with one another. This isn't a top-down approach of one company saying "This is how things will be!" -- this is a crowdsourced approach of finding consensus between the social media application producers.

Standards are only as good as the people who write them, and only as useful as the number of people who use them. We've been recruiting some of the top talent across industries over the past few weeks - and hope to have the full support of the Advertising and Agency worlds by years end. Over the next few weeks, you can expect to see some large names add themselves to the Social Media Standards project - and we hope to see many small names add themselves too.

From PHP and Python to Rails and .NET - we hope to have every platform covered with reference implementations and building blocks -- so Social Media Standards can be quickly implemented, and people can redeploy their projects across platforms when needed.

Microsoft walked away from the Yahoo acquisition attempt cleanly, citing Jerry Yang's ineptitude as the prime example (though Steve Ballmer was quite more diplomatic than myself).

I didn't want to see the deal go through myself -- I think Yahoo is worth more in the long run, and a MS acquisition would have destroyed it through a clash of cultures ( will the employees like it and stay? will they have to migrate from an entire Open Source platform to .NET -- YHOO uses php and mysql extensively ).

In his open letter, Ballmer says what I - and many 'real' analysts keep saying - Yahoo is *fucking stupid* for working with Google on the search advertising front.

The quest for extra search ads cash is going to undermine their display and behavioral advertising systems - by putting a vote of no-confidence in their ad platforms ( panama, smart ads, etc), creating a new customer relationship touch-point with Google, and allowing Google to set pricing standards on too much of the online ads industry.

An MS acquisition would have been the death of Yahoo's promise, potential and spirit -- but the way Jerry Yang has avoided it has pretty much killed a lot of Yahoo's potential on its own.