Contribute a logo/badge design to DataPortability.org

Are you a creative person? Want your logo/image used on thousands of sites? Help create the badge that will represent the data portability movement over on DataPortability.org.

Upload your ideas to flickr and join in the fun.

First prize is the love and admiration of the entire world.

Facebook increases user profiling - still no APML!

Facebook has added 'I like this' and 'I don't like this' buttons to each NewsFeed entry.

So Facebook are now they are collecting your explicit Attention Gestures to measure how much interest you, as a user, has in the ads and notifications coming through the stream.

This, of course, adds another dimension to their already comprehensive Attention Profile.

Still no APML or RSS though.

At a time when APML is being integrated into NewsGator and Ask products, tools are being created to convert Last.FM attention/listening data to APML, and Facebook's ad platform is receiving a lot of heat, one wonders if Facebook will continue to open their platform to give users control.

APML - The complete story so far....

Michael Pick has written the most comprehensive overview of the Attention Economy and APML so far. I encourage everyone to read it and pass it on to all your friends

Read it here: Attention Profiling: APML Beginner's Guide

Some highlights from the post:

We have reached the point of information hyper-saturation. It can become quite a chore to find relevant content online, when there is so much other information competing for your attention. But by implementing attention profiling, it becomes possible to have the services and websites you visit begin to make suggestions for content that you might be interested in.

APML is a proposed standard that gives you greater control over your own attention data, and in principle will allow you to selectively record your attention profile - the sites you visit, the search terms that interest you most, the content you most commonly link to - and share it with your favorite websites and services.

...

While APML stands up as its own standard, it is also possible to see it as part of a bigger picture.

As the web evolves we are seeing a great shift towards smart information filtering - the evolving notion of a "semantic web", but also, just as significantly, a move in the direction of expanding data portability.

Open standards make for an effective way of allowing data to freely flow from one web destination to another, rather than keeping different sets of data in closed silos and walled gardens. At the moment if I want to have a profile on MySpace and Facebook, for instance, I have to create them separately, and any information I enter on each remains locked into that particular destination.

Open standards and data portability are all about allowing me to take my information and use it across a number of services.

Well done Michael - it's an awesome piece of work.

We're speaking at MixOnCampus Brisbane

Ashley and I will be speaking at the MixOnCampus event in Brisbane on the 20th of November.

Thanks to Michael Kordahi for his invitation.

Look forward to seeing the boys - Nick Hodge, Scott Barnes and others.

See you there!

Podcast debate about OpenSocial, APML, MS and Google

Listen to Duncan Riley from Techcrunch, Ashley and I and Jon from Cluztr.com talk about Microsoft Vs. Google, OpenSocial Vs. Facebook, APML Vs. The world and more.

Podcast here

Facebook says that you are a FANatical ConSUMER

Jeremiah (fellow Media 2.0 Workgroup member) has just posted the latest news from myspace and facebook about their new social advertising solutions.

From his executive summary:

Both Facebook and MySpace have launched profile and network targeted advertising and marketing products. As they both use member interests and the communities which they are part of, trust continues to become key in adoption as information is passed along the network. The sheer size of MySpace's member base, as well as the thriving local business membership will lead to success. Facebook, which brings a unique solution evolves advertisements to endorsements and encourages members to subscribe to a brand in what we are calling "Fan-Sumers" (an evolution of the consumer). As consumers share their affinities, brands can advertise using trusted social relationships.

Advertising as we know it is indeed dead. Word of mouth has always been more powerful than messages shouted from on-high. And now, with Media 2.0 reducing friction to zero and increasing visibility toward 100%, Word of mouth has never been stronger - or more important.

Your words now echo for all of time - and they get louder as they travel.

So moving towards a world where sites can enable brands to better facilitate and moderate the word of mouth network seems obvious. The problem, though, is with the fundamental thinking at these organizations.

For example, the name Fan-sumer is disgusting. FANatical ConSUMER? It's far worse than User Generated Content! Sure it's just a name, but it is a revealing insight into their line of thinking.

Word of mouth is not sanctioned, it just happens. Ultimately the best you can do is join in the conversation. Giving away 'free steak knives' to your friends only reduces everyone's credibility.

As I said on Jeremiah's post, however, the core idea is not a total write-off - but it will need heavy modification to align with reality - friends trust each other, and helping them spam each other does nothing for anyone

I wrote:

Fan-sumer? So now we are further reduced to FANatical ConSUMERS?

As usual, the underlying idea is interesting, but the execution is so user-unfriendly (the name alone reveals their true intentions) that they are just legitimizing peer-to-peer spam.

As a true social solution for advertising it is not a write-off, but the execution needs a lot of tweaking to be truly about engagement and personalization with a true sense of trust based endorsements from your friends.

Update: I have also posted about this on Blognation.