News on Portable Social Networks

Reading blogs over the last couple of days it seems portable social networks are the latest craze in the blogosphere. And rightly they are. People want to have control over their own data and they want to share it with whoever they like regardless of any specific social network.

I have already mentioned Brian Oberkirch’s great series of blog posts about the topic. Also LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick has written a thought provoking piece on the topic (with the help of David Recordon) which is highly recommended.

People who want to discuss the topic in depth can join the Google group Social Network Portability which has been launched over the weekend; also a Ma.gnolia group has been set up.

The topic is also discussed in Germany. There have been two sessions about it at BarCamp Cologne this weekend (fortunately there was a live stream available, I couldn’t be there), one being run by Sebastian Küpers who provided a good overview on the topic and one by Dirk Olbertz who gave an introduction to his Noserub project which should help building your own portable social network; it’s in a very early stage, though.

Things are shaping up well and it’s good to see it happening around the world.