Data is (and should be) always changing and fluid. It should be portable, widely accessible, and easily modified when needed.
For many of us, keeping track of data is not a simple task. Consider these..
How is your address book stored? Is it shared and updated between you and your family? If you have a 3rd party internet based address book, if the site crashed tomorrow would you lose your data? Do you find yourself going to your gmail for one persons information, your cell phone for someone else’s? Is this scattered?
How do you send and receive messages? What do you do with the data sent to you in these, such as a photo or new phone number? Do you have emails in multiple accounts, with no easy way to find a message because you can not remember which account it was in – not to mention search tool differences.
How do you keep track of your usernames and passwords for websites? If you lost a password, would you be able to guess the email you used or the security question answer? Is this scattered in multiple places as well?
In some ways there are improvements, Plaxo and other social networking sites have allowed us to share updated information, but not everyone uses Plaxo or cares to keep you updated via Plaxo’s update tool. Then getting data from point A – point B or synchronized between two points can also prove a challenge.
What if you wanted to update a phone number to every website you ever submitted your phone number to? My wife and I have been married for less than a year, many companies still have her old last name, there is no effective solution for her to change all of them. Filling a change of address with the post office only goes so far.
I envision a solution with a single data point – and websites pull data they are allowed from a single source. An individual can select what information they are going to share with certain individuals and companies. If the individual updates part of their information, it is updated everywhere.
Things are already headed in this direction. People want consolidation and not to have data scattered everywhere.
These things have been on my mind for quite a while. Some sites attempt consolidation / simplification.
http://plaxo.com/ – “Stay in touch with the people you care about.”
There are may other social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.
http://openid.net/ – OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites
http://nutshellmail.com/ -Access, Manage, and Monitor Messages From All Your Email and Social Networking Accounts Through Any Inbox You Already Use
https://foldershare.com/ – Keep your latest files with you, no matter which computer you’re using.
Also in the Sharing arena, Google Docs as well as several other Google services help share data.
All though the above may be great, it is still scattering data. How can we consolidate? What can we do to simplify until we can effectively consolidate?