While some people regard recent talk about data portability just as hype, it can’t be denied that the underlying technologies of it gain some more, well deserved attention already. One of those technologies are microformats, especially hCards and XFN.
So it is no wonder that Danish web application Zyb has added microformats as well. Zyb lets users backup address books, calendar entries, and text messages of their mobile phones (see original article on NSR).
The address book entries are marked up with hCard, so they can be exported without much hassle to other applications and devices.
Also links to other profiles are marked up with XFN, <rel="me"> to be precisely.
Zyb has announced to utilize XFN data of other sites as well. So for example it might be possible that users are able to synchronize their Twitter contacts with their Zyb contacts. Would be great. I also suggest marking up calendar entries with the hCalendar microformat. Shouldn’t be much of a problem.
It shows that many companies and developers already think about opening their applications and make them more accessible. I think data portability is here to stay and making more waves in 2008.
Tags: mobile phones, Twitter, underlying technologies, web application
