Andy Jamieson: Entrepreneur

In reports out today, MySpace, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay and others have joined a movement called data portability.

Tech Crunch notes some key benefits for consumers such as syncronisation of data eg friends lists or personal data. However, just because i am using Twitter, do i want to know who else is? Maybe, maybe not! Or taken a step further, my eBay auctions do i want my friends to know i buy all my clothes there? Again, maybe, maybe not.

New entrants to the group, how will they protect my data? How long will it take to be updated or removed? Sometimes more is better and in this case I believe it will be great, however, with great changes come lots of areas of concern.

What will be the opportunites that come about? Will more openess allow consumers greater flexibility and power now that their information is not contained within a walled garden? Will it spark even greater transfer of users between products through lowering the real switching costs - time?

thoughts?

Here is official data portability