Data portability is another mass media loss

It seems like the world has gone mad with data portability. The other day MySpace announced their Data Availability Programme, and before you could say ‘Yeah’, Facebook followed it up with their version called Facebook Connect and now Google has joined them with Google Friend Connect.

Marc Canter has an excellent point about this essentially being another try by the major players (which of course also includes Microsoft) to lock people in. They failed with the portals - now they try with the social graph. I agree. But what is more evident to me is that yet again media companies are left behind.

You could of course argue that News Corp has covered its flanks with the MySpace announcement. But as far as the rest of them goes this again showcases one pitiful and costly lack in media companies asset portfolio: The harbouring of user data and as a consequence user loyalty.

Most media companies still find it hard to cope with having to distribute content outside their own controlled realm. Instead they seem dead set on competing on all the parameters that have once and for all become commodities.

News reporting is a great example. All media compete for speed of news, and yet the news of the recent earthquake in China was broken on Twitter…Need I say more?

With their recent endeavours into data portability the major players have dealt what could in time become a severe blow to media companies. Because at the end of the day the real differentiator in value towards the stockmarket is not whether you are 5 seconds or 2 minutes faster on the last breaking news. It is the number of relationships your brand carries with it. And relationships are manifested in end user data, friends, social graphs and what have you.

In other words: The business value of media companies is eroding - faster than ever before.