DataPortability is an effort by a group of volunteers and Internet application vendors to promote the capability to control, share, and move data from one system to another. DataPortability is the idea that users should be able to move, share, and control their identity, photos, videos and all other forms of personal data.

The project aims to document the best practices for integrating existing open standards and protocols to enable end-to-end data portability between online tools, vendors, and services.

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A few initiatives like this have been started, but the most important factor for success is to see how social networks adapt to a companie's standard. Currently, I see DataPortability forging ahead with adaption from facebook, twitter, netvibes, and linedIn. I believe all the "competitors" for this "portability" market are collaborating and are ultimately looking for the greater good of online practices, ethics and standards.

Here is a list of similar efforts that are trying to unify a standard:

OpenID

"A free and easy way to use a single digital identity across the Internet."

OAuth

"An open protocol to allow secure API authentication in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications."

Microformats

"Microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works today, microformats intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to current behaviors and usage patterns."

Xmpp

"Xmpp is an open XML technology for real-time communication, which powers a wide range of applications including instant messaging, presence, media session management, shared editing, whiteboarding, collaboration, lightweight middleware, content syndication, and generalized XML routing."