See the full The DataPortability Project March 2008 Report. Here are some highlights:

1. DataPortability Project Road Map: Goals put forward in the initial Project Road Map continue to move ahead with the Invitationphase. New high profile individuals and companies will announce that they are joining the DataPortability Project in April. The Investigation phase is driving cross-team deliverables, including the formation of the DataPortability: In Motion Podcast show*.*
2. DataPortability Processes: Workflow and Decision Making Processes continue to be part of the Steering Group's discussion threads,and this month we moved one step closer to having some processes that everyone can support. From developer to marketer, everyone is ready to start doing more, now that we've covered every angle of how to do it. The detailed workflow has moved to the Wikifor final discussion, and some projects are already using this workflow to test it (see Item 3 below). A special taskforce will finalise the details of what has become an evolving social experiment for people organizing around a common goal.
3. Proposal for Specification Development Process: After various conversations via Skype and the Discussion Threads, members of the Technical Action Group, with input from others in Steering and Evangelism, drafted a wiki page as a proposal for a method to develop new specifications. The basic summary recommendation is that we split the work into two types of documents - technical recommendations for indicating support of a given protocol, and technical implementations for indicating methods to work with those technologies. Read more and add comments and suggestions on the Wiki page.
4. DataPortability Logo -- cease-and-desist no more: The logo competition moved closer to the community voting phase. Submissions came to a close, with more than 400 designs under consideration. Judges are selecting the best designs, with a shortlist presented to the community for public voting. Community voting will begin soon and we hope to announce the winner during the Web 2.0 San Francisco conference week in April.
5. "What Does DataPortability Mean to Me" Video Project: More than twenty videos were sent to the project as a result of our effort to capture positions on what DataPortability means. We are aggregating them all to showcase the diverse views of "What DataPortability Means to Me."

Come to the Evangelism ConfCall Apr-10-2008. If you dare.

Join us this Saturday, May 24, at Found Gallery in Los Angeles, for the 2nd monthly Los Angeles DartPortability Meetup.

Things kick off at 7pm. Read the full details for address information as well as rideshares.

The Contest:

On February 22, 2008, the DataPortability Project launched a contest to find a new logo. Over the following month, we received over 400 submissions from the community. After three grueling weeks, working with our panel of expert judges, we paired down the entries to 15 finalists. Out of these finalists, we are asking you, the community, to help us choose the winning logo.

The Details:

When: The public voting begins on April 15, at 12pm (PST), and ends on Friday, April 18, at 11:59pm (PST).
Where: Cast your vote online at: http://dataportability.techcrunch.com

Prizes: The winning entry will be awarded the following prizes:

• iPhone from Jive Software
• Weeks ad space on TechCrunch! Thanks to Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch
• A Month ad space on either CenterNetworks (www.centernetworks.com) or
• HTMLCenter (www.htmlcenter.com) thanks to Allen Stern
• $100 from Bub.blicio.us thanks to Brian Solis
• $100 of Compete Credits to get access to premium reports thanks to Jay Meattle at Compete
• $500 and a "I'd sync that" T-shirt from Plaxo thanks to John McCrea
• An A0 Trendmap from Information Architects
• $100 from HedgeHog Lab
• Free Ticket to Plugg (worth €500) thanks to Robin Wauters
• A Goplan Unlimited account valid for one year (worth $1200)

Second and Third Place entries will receive:

• An A0 Trendmap from Information Architects

The Talking Points:

• We are building a Trust Mark for the data portability conversation
• This was a massive group effort across three continents and 15 time zones. This proves that the distributed participant democracy system in place in the DataPortability organization works.
• DataPortability is transparent - community built and community driven. This logo contest is an example of that ethos in practice. The community is picking our logo!

The Sponsors:

We would also like to extend a very grateful thank you to our logistical sponsors, without whom, we would never have been able to hold a public vote. Thank you to Webreakstuff for building this excellent voting application, to TechCrunch for their logistical and networking support (both social and digital), to MediaTemple for hosting, and to ConceptShare for their donation of an online collaboration space.

Initial Coverage:

• Elias Bizannes - with background information on the process.
• Brady Brim-DeForest - with images for use by press.
• Chris Saad - the founder speaks.
• Christian Scholz

Contributors:

DataPortability Logo Contest ended Friday night.

Many votes cast.

No hanging chads.

Results to be announced at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco on Tuesday or Wednesday. Thanks for voting!

Full Details Link

The labels for the Web 2.0 Expo arrive. Photo by Daniela.

I'm looking at Instructables.com as one of the delivery and community deliverables of DIYDP.

We'll create a group for DIY Data Portability.

For each monthly project, five instructables go into the group:

1. What is this months' project?
2. How to explain this to your boss in 4 minutes
3. Planning your project
4. Doing your project
5. How to brag about your project

We'll embed what we can/should into the DIYDP wiki but much/most of this interaction will be on the Instructables site.

Principal contact: Christy Canida, community and marketing manager, 510-931-5622, canida aht instructables dott com

The topic is the Internet's utter lack of usability in Robert Scoble's May 2008 FastCompany column, How to Fix the Web: The online world isn't always user-friendly. But it easily could be.

The problem:

"For all the cool things we can do, Internet breakthroughs don't play well together -- or even talk to one another. Ironic, no? The Internet, which is shorthand for "interconnected network" and is one of the most significant achievements in the history of communication, is often broken because applications don't interact. We spend all our time hopping from one island of information to another, repeating the same tasks, costing ourselves and our businesses time and money. The good news is that, even as I complain, there are efforts under way to make things better."

The plug:

"Thankfully, the folks over at DataPortability.org are working with social-networking outfits to get them to adopt the existing technologies that will let users share data between sites. But it's not going to be easy."

The call to action:

"The Internet has already exploded many notions about business. It's time that we stop hoarding customers and their information in silos for fear of them straying. If you love them, set them free."