One-stop shopping seems to be the theme of this latest move. Four of the biggest technology companies are banding together to make it easier for users to download and transfer their data between services. This interesting news came to us from Engadget in their article, “Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter unite to simplify data transfers.”
Recently, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter formally announced The Data Transfer Project (DTP). This open-source initiative is designed to create new tools that “enable people to freely move their information across the web,” according to Damien Kieran, Data Protection Officer at Twitter.
The DTP will use a series of adapters that can unravel proprietary APIs into easily understandable data packets. In theory, this means a person could transfer their Instagram photos to Flickr, or Google Photos, without having to mass-download and upload their library.
Their goal is to make it convenient for users to move between services. This will result in fairer competition online.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.
