data portability is good for business

data portability has been positioned as a consumer privacy issue, but it's also a business marketing issue. Say you market through twitter. Great, but what if twitter (god forbid) went out of business? Back to square one (unless, of course, you've got a good social media ecosystem going where you have multiple relationships going with individuals across channels). But wouldn't it be great if you as a consumer could have a dashboard of all the brands you want to hear from, and how you want to hear from them? You would be in control, and it would be convenient for you. I'm sure it's possible, but it would need someone like Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the web and gave it away because it was too important a piece of infrastructure to run as a business. The existence of the w3c appears more miraculous the more i observe industry and interest groups. I don't know all that much about the data portability group, but i wish them all the best because this stuff is very important. (apologies for the lack of formatting, i'm writing this on my mobile phone while out on a walk. By the way, olympic park in new lynn is a great walk and full of interesting art works!)