Web 2.0 Social Power Grab: Will Faraday Media Open Up?
Contrary to the tagline of the Australian Web 2.0 firm Faraday Media sponsored “Data Portability.org,” online sharing is NOT ALWAYS caring: Just ask the Scobleizer’s 5000 “friends.” What’s more, despite the Riley-Kirkpatrick tag team blogosphere boosting of Faraday Media CEO Chris Saad, the social networking BOMBSHELL that Saad’s “Data Portability Working Group,” is purported to be is but more feel good sound and fury, that could very well signify nothing.
In fact, at the end of the so-called Data Portability day, users may actually be more harmed than helped, (not) thanks to the non-transparent lobbying of interested party Faraday Media in its seemingly benevolent “DataPortability.org,” as I analyze in Data Portability Games: Australian Faraday Media Pushes Web Agenda in U.S.
For a company that positions itself, its products and the industry consortium it seeks to spur, on a vaunted notion of transparency, Faraday Media’s “DataPortability.org” is non-transparent to the users it claims to be helping. Faraday Media is nevertheless crystal clear on its own corporate agenda: To be the definitive “epicenter of the attention ecosystem.” BUT, how does Faraday Media’s creation and evangelizing of the “Data Portability Workgroup,” support its own product roadmap and corporate agenda?
AND, how does a corporate sponsored entity, pooling corporate interests, commercial Web properties and industry consultants, demonstrate that “DataPortability.org” will work in the best interests of users? While the TechCrunch-ReadWrite Web Chris Saad cheerleading team gushes over the “heavy hitters” Faraday Media has managed to snag for its efforts in making sure that it operates as the “epicenter of the Attention Ecosystem,” the confluence of power players may serve to solidify commercial influence over users’ data.
NEWS FLASH: Contrary to conventional blogosphere wisdom, the typical online social networker is NOT clamoring for data portability and many actually fear it, as the Scobleizer-Plaxo stunt reconfirms. SEE: Plaxo, Marc Canter Ignore Rights of Stubborn Social Web Silent Majority and Zuckerberg Message: Facebook Resistance Futile, Billions of Stubborn Email Accounts Targeted and NewsFriends? Facebook Anti Social Utility: Real Friends DON’T Share
ALSO: Does LinkedIn Have a Connections Fraud Problem? and Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn About Face (book) and Deal Maker on LinkedIn: ‘What Do I Do With It?’ and 2008 Social Media Warning: Beware Google AND Facebook and Henry Blodget Braces For ‘Harder Times’: Silicon Alley Insider ‘Screwed’?