You seem to be asking that the public, voluntary, and near-free set of networks that is constantly evolving behave like a controlled behind-the-firewall set of integrated applications that has some sort of central governance. I'm not saying that's impossible, but you may be asking for developers to stop innovating, and that ain't gonna happen. Maybe we just need to learn to live with chaos?

Another thing is, DataSittingInOnePlace rapidly becomes DataAtRiskOfGettingBlownAwayIrretrievablyBecauseItWasOnlyInOnePlace.

See also, "LNotes-L." One guy decides he doesn't wanna bother maintaining the oldest Notes-related mailing list in the world, and overnight, it and a good-sized portion of its archives and the entire subscriber list disappears. Some redundancy can be a very good mess.

It's you very own personal set of services in the world wide Service Oriented Architecture.

Every sercive you 'connect' to must provide a standardize modelling tool, allowing you to map the providers interface with your 'blob'. Once this service 'connection' is mapped, it will be stored following a certain naming convention. 'Connections' are reusable with any other service provider supplying a known interface.

I like the idea! There has to be some kind of iron-clad security model wrapped around it, and also a set of generic functionality like logging, audit trails and translation would be relevant.

But could it survive the Big Brother scare?

@Dennnis - Actually I am not asking them to stop innovating. Quite the opposite. Focus only on innovating and stop worrying avout gathering all the data. Use the data that is made available and make new, exciting, innovative tools that make users want to use your service or site without data recreation. Just a simple allowance of access

@Turtle - I know I shot you an email, but the the holder of this data source would be diligent about backup/restore/data intgegrity.

P.S. I have the L-notesl archives from Lotus, they sent me a copy and I placed it publicly available.

@lars - big brother scare doesn't apply since everyone is already storing this data out there, just all over the place in so many sites it is getting ridiculous. The idea is to bring that part together and then follow the path you said. Glad you get it.

@Chris - I see you point.

I do think, though, that the Big Brother scare is still possible. I know that the information is still out the, but it IS after all split between sites. This 'new' way of plugging into personal information would have all the date in one place, but not available for all that connect.

Or am I wrong there? Should all the personal information be available to everybody, and just the mapping be customized.

...I know that the information is still out THERE ...

Deduct 1 point for not checking before posting!

*sigh*

I wrote a post on this very same subject that you might find interesting { Link } .