File Under: Metaservices, Rise of?
John Battelle writes:
Let me step back and describe the problem. In short, heavy users of the web depend on scores – sometimes hundreds – of services, all of which work wonderfully for their particular purpose (eBay for auctions, Google for search, OpenTable for restaurant reservations, etc). But these services simply don’t communicate with each other, nor collaborate in a fashion that creates a robust or evolving ecosystem.
The rise of the app economy exacerbates the problem – most apps live in their own closed world, sharing data sparingly, if at all. And while many have suggested that Facebook’s open social graph can help untangle the problem, in fact it only makes it worse, as Fred put it in a recent post (which sparked this Thinking Out Loud session for me):
The people I want to follow on Etsy are not the same people I want to follow on Twitter. The people I want to follow on Svpply are not my Facebook friends. I don’t want to sharemy Foursquare checkins with everyone on Twitter and Facebook.
It is a very interesting take but I disagree with the implication that metaservices need to be server side.
With a client side metaservice, say one based upon a topic map, I could share (or not) information as I choose.
Granted that puts more of a burden for maintenance of privacy on the user, but any who trusts others to manage privacy for them, is already living in fish bowl, they just don’t know it.
I think breaching silos with metaservices on the client-side is an excellent opportunity for demonstrating the information management capabilities of topic maps.
Not to mention being an opportunity for commercialization of a client-side metaservice, which should include mapping for the various online silos and their changing arrangements on a subscription basis.