Jumping back into a thread from a couple of weeks ago, Steve Mallet, Alf Eaton, Lucas Gonze, Eric Sigler and JD Lasica all had something to say about where DLAs (digital lifestyle aggregators) should store their data.

The answer is YES of course. There is no one answer.

When we were building the PeopleAggregator - Phil Pearson graciously built us a place to store our MP3s, images, links, etc. We then APIed into Phil’s InternetTopicExchange and displayed that data inside of Laszlo objects (which became the BlogBox series of blog plugins.)

But as soon as we built this rig - it became immediately apparent that folks would want to store their data - all over the place. In fact the data IS all over the place.

So nowadays I just say - yes - it will be all over the place. The logic that FOAF should be here, rather than there - should be driven by the context. Sxip will give us lots of flexiblity.

Alf argues (eloquently) that aggregating the data on your own page” is the best approach. I agree as well. But that doesn’t mean the data is there - however. It’s still all over the place.

In fact look at it this way.

By definiton DLAs are teh next generation portal. And we currently have AOL, Yahoo & MSN dominating that space.

Soon Google will raise the ante.

So where’s your data gonna be? All in one place> I doubt it.

But the brain dead approach of using FOAF for profile storage - is so - like 2003ish. Many agree. That’s the excuse why Plink shut down.

This whol new thing is shaking itself out right now. Taking FOAF at face value leads one to just store all this shit in the FOAF file and put it out there.

Well DUH!

Anyone can get at that.

So until we have control mechanisms in place - like Sxip - just shill, will you please!

Way back before all this (like 5-7 years ago) we called the early version of DLAs - ‘Server-in-the-Closet’. The name said everything to me - but it said “Home Media Hardware Company” to everyone else.

By then Napster had shown that servers on one’s desktop was the future - which is something Dave Winer had shown before that.

So the logical strategy was to build servers for humans that would reside in their abode and handle the storage of all their media, meta-data, docs, etc.

But those humans need backups, have jobs, go to school and travel allot. The data has to be transparent and ubiquitous. I guess that means we need a virtual file system.

Anyone got one?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 11th, 2004 at 8:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.