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Google Data Liberation Group Seeks To Unlock Data
Several sources are reporting that The Data Liberation Front, a new engineering group within Google, is trying make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products. They have already "liberated" about half of Google's offerings (including Blogger and Gmail) and have plans to liberate Google Sites and Google Docs in the near future. "In a blog post this morning, Data Liberation engineering manager Brian Fitzpatrick, uses a good analogy to explain why the company sees this is an important step: 'Imagine you want to move out of your apartment. When you ask your landlord about the terms of your previous lease, he says that you are free to leave at any time; however, you cannot take all of your things with you - not your photos, your keepsakes, or your clothing. If you're like most people, a restriction like this may cause you to rethink moving altogether. Not only is this a bad situation for you as the tenant, but it's also detrimental to the housing industry as a whole, which no longer has incentive to build better apartments at all. Although this may seem like a strange analogy, this pretty accurately describes the situation my team, Google's Data Liberation Front, is working hard to combat from an engineering perspective.'"
So the idea is that making it easier to leave google makes you more likely to stay with google?
I need to try this on my girlfriend!
-1, Disagree is not a valid option. Troll, Flamebait and Offtopic are not a substitute.
This is an even-numbered, "Do No Evil" week.
Watch out next week though.
to the NSA!
This is one of THE major complaints about AOL. Easy to get data in, impossible to get out.
Just last month I was asked to assist someone to get all their contacts (1,500 or so) out of AOL's mail system. There is no export feature, nor any third-party tool to do it. AOL's official answer is to print it out for a backup.
I called AOL's support, and after several rounds of phone-tree hell, got a tech who told me flat out "We don't do that. Good luck!"
I ended up writing a script that parsed the XML-like output of their "print" function. Print to screen, save to file, parse with Perl. It hoses up the contact lists, which are included and just end up creating duplicates. They don't output as lists at all.
Still, it was marginally better than hiring someone to retype it all by hand.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
This is both the big advantage (for providers) and disadvantage (for customers) with SaaS-type "cloud" services: data lock-in. Its interesting that Google believes that they can compete enough on quality that lock-in is no longer an advantage to them because it scares away more potential customers than it traps.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Data Liberation engineering manager Brian Fitzpatrick, uses a good analogy ... you cannot take all of your things with you
This a bad analogy. When you move your stuff out of your apartment, you are actually removing the stuff - not making copies. With Google The Evil (tm), you have no guarantee that they haven't stashed a "backup" somewhere in their dark recesses. You don't really take your stuff, you just make a copy.
Guy 1: Are you with the Data Liberation Front?
Guy 2: No, we're with the Liberation Front for Data!
Guy 1: Oh, well at least you aren't with the Front for Data Liberation!
... the members of that data liberation group would quickly be "liberated" from their jobs!
(I'm basing this on experiences trying to get data out of Outlook and over to another client)
#DeleteChrome
I need to use the esoterically named called "Export to" command, and save the document in another format on my computer? Thanks Google Liberation Front for this helpful information!
I think that getting data out of proprietary document formats with no export functions is a bigger concern for me at the moment.
The easier it is to move data in and out of Google, the more data Google get to monitor.
I'm very curious how they are going to liberate the user added data in Google Maps/Mapmaker. Right now the 'community' adds raw data like streets & locations but 'only' get back PNGs with colors representing streets and locations. Granted this is enough for most people. But Openstreetmap has been doing similar work and allows users access to the raw data, resulting in totally different uses than just simple PNG-maps. It would be awesome to tap into the raw mapmaker data and combine it with raw openstreetmap data for for instance routing, vector based maps for mobiles (smaller!) etc
I am SO sick of Google. They are giving every corporation a bad name by being so unevil.
I was initially going to comment that this analogy is a bit off:
The obvious problem is that no particular landlord is interested in "the housing industry as a whole": they're interested in their own corner of it. And so it's not clear why the landlord would want to do something to make it easier for tenants to move out, just because the end result is good for "the industry as a whole", unless they're altruists.
But in this case, I think the analogy might actually work well. What if the landlord controlled, say, more than half of the housing industry? Then they might well want to do what's good for the housing industry as a whole, because they'll gain more customers from increasing the size of the industry as a whole than they'll lose to competitors within the industry. Google plausibly controls such a large proportion of "the cloud" that that's their interest.
It does reduce the competitive moat, though. It may make it easier to grow by doing something like this, but it also makes it easier for some future competitor to much more quickly poach Google's customers. It looks like that's a risk they're willing to take, but many companies aren't. I think that's because many companies realize they are where they are at least partly due to luck, and can't count on staying there without taking active measures to cling to that position.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As in... The Data Liberation Front ?...
Oh well...
never mind...
Damn capitalist hippies!
It's getting where an evil mega-corp can't make a bazillion bucks anymore.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I've been looking for a good way to get a bunch of old email out of my yahoo account for a while without paying for a premium account... this actually looks like a good option! Judging from the screenshots I can import my email into gmail and then grab it via POP/IMAP.. now off to try it :)
... that Google is trying to liberate it's own data?
A very smart move, if they really implement it as described.
But remember that there will be a price to pay : google may easily provide you with an export of all the information you gave them, but they will certainly keep a copy.
Why don't they start by allowing people to close their accounts on Blogger after they moved away their data?
Data unlock liberation group!
Yours In Murmansk,
Kilgore T.
Doesn't he mean, "You wouldn't choose to enter into that lease in the first place."
I.e. people won't use Google products until they can avoid lock-in.
Google's Terms of Service suck. Clause 11 needs to become much narrower, and preferabbly have some permission process in it. Until they fix that, the whole effort is just bla bla.
Insert
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/winolj.html/
Rick Moen . . .
INOLJ-OOW2.0C (Is Not On LiveJournal Or Other Web 2.0 Cults)
It's worth the read.
So you can get your data out when you want to move to different sites/applications.
What about getting your data out if Google decides to stop the site/app, decides to stop the "Liberation Group", decides to delete your data from it's systems or somehow has to stop business.
This "Liberation Group" thing simply ensures you can get your data only when you least need to.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Imagine you've been driving your car for years, and have accumulated lots of map notes, music, and playlists in your car's navigation and music systems. When you decide you want to buy a new car from a different manufacturer, you're free to do so, but you can't simply transfer all your settings to the new vehicle, even though it has similar systems. The only way to move it all over is to manually re-enter/recopy each item, which would take many hours.
- Splitters! Splitters!
- We're Data Liberation Front...
- Oh. I thought we were Data Front of Liberation.
Google More Obvious Name Group Seeks To Make Names More Obvious
Google is pretty keen on staying on the good side of the industry, but there is another aspect to consider. By focusing on making the data mobile you can go both ways. A modular and standardized method of storing data makes it easier for people to move over to google as well as move out. I could even see some sort of service for migrating data between different services come out of this group.
No, you take out your stuff, they may keep a copy.
The leased apartment is a perfect analogy in this respect. No one can be sure that the landlord didn't use his master key when you were away and took pictures of all your stuff. Maybe he has his own apartment decorated exactly like yours.
But why should he? Unless you are a world-famous interior decorator, what reason would anyone have to copy your layout? Likewise, what incentive does Google have to keep copies of your data? They may keep information about you, for statistics, just like a marketing researcher may look into your trash can to see what products you buy, but that's not such a big deal.
I think people are too nervous about the assumed value of their on-line data. Think of how much data about you was public long before home computers existed. Your phone number and address are written in a book that's given for free to everyone who has a telephone. You carry a plate with a unique id code on the outside of your car. Every cheque you use to pay something has your signature and bank account number. All these items can and *have* been used by fraudsters in the past. Why should we get more nervous just because the data is in a digital format?
Was I the only one who wondered if these guys were affiliated with the Judean People's Front? ...or perhaps it was the People's Front of Judea?
The highest rated suggestion - over a thousand votes - on the data liberation site is about Google Maps.
Specifically - the rather loose definition of what we can and can't do with the data.
http://moderator.appspot.com/#15/e=43649&t=4364a
You can extract a kml from a my-maps thing you've drawn on top of googles satellite imagery easily.
But what can you do with this?
Google have made vague and unclear statements that 'bulk' use is not allowed - without saying what this is.
Yahoos terms and conditions allow uses like this, and much of OpenStreetMap has been helped by this for example - people able to trace streets, streams, and ...
But the license for data derived from maps is still unclear - can I for example take a list of 3000 river crossings from google, crowdsource how easy they are to get across with a 4x4 or a donkey, and then publish this list?
And if I sell the list, or publish a book of maps using this data combined with openstreetmap data?
so how about doing something useful with all those aerial/street photos (like letting openstreetmap trace them, rather than have them sitting unused hoping someone at googleplex will find a way to paste ads on the pics before they become out-of-date)
What about my search data? Will Google let me take all they've learned about me through my searching the last 5 years and carry that to a new search provider?
On the information super highway, mousemat underhand
Pages choc full of banners, sites filled up with spam
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
Plain simple front page, with a clean white design
I surfed down to the site
There they stood in the doorway;
Names were Page and Brin
And I was thinking that this site
could be made out of fail or made out of win
Then I clicked on the search link, and they showed me the way
There were posts all over the interwebs,
I thought I read them say...
Welcome to the hotel googleplexia
Such a lovely page (Such a lovely page)
Such a lovely cage
Plenty of hits at the hotel googleplexia
Be it far or near(Be it far or near)
You can find it here
They got web search and Youtube, they got scholar and trends
They got gchat and email, and know all your friends
Click about and see websites, can't see a threat
You might not remember, but they never forget
I called Larry and Sergey
Asked, "why put this online?"
They said, we know everything you've done since, 1999
And still I click web search results by night and day
Seems wrong but the results are so right
Can almost hear them say...
Welcome to the hotel googleplexia
Such a lovely page (Such a lovely page)
Such a lovely cage
Livin' your life at the hotel googleplexia
Looks like a paradise (Looks like a paradise),
if you're a private eye....
Then a got a bad feeling
what if they stop being nice
They said; "Your just a customer here, and we know your price"
And in the marketers chambers,
They gathered for the feast
Troll all the data on people's lives
And they will never cease
Last thing I remember,
I had said I'd take no more
Need to get private data back
To the way it was before
Relax said the G-man
We have programmed to deceive
You can checkout any time you like,
But your data can never leave!
Welcome to the hotel googleplexia
Such a lovely page (Such a lovely page)
Such a lovely cage
Plenty of hits at the hotel googleplexia
Be it far or near(Be it far or near)
You can find it here
May the Maths Be with you!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE! (For those of you not in the UK, or those of you too young to recognise this, look up "Citizen Smith").
I went to their site... what a fake group, just a total front for google. Nowhere did I find a way to export the emails from gmail to .dbx files for Outlook/Express. So of all google's services, gmail is the most used, and of that service, the vast majority of its data is the emails themselves.
Yet, this largest volume from the largest service is not at all liberated. Liberation for that stuff is not even mentioned, not even on the map.
Information Liberation Front, kickin' it old school.
I already have the means to export all my Google data. Contacts and calendar can be easily exported thru the web interface. For mail I use IMAP: Evolution syncs everything. For the docs I use a Python script called GDD. It's getting easier though, and I like this move by Google. They're committing themselves to keeping their services on a level where you don't want to leave, even if you easily can.
Error 001
Security Scan and Virus Detection do not work with your operating system.
Now they just need a colony pod and they're set!
"What's more important, the data or the jazz? Sure, sure, 'Information should be free' and all that --but anyone can set information free. The jazz is in how you do it, what you do it to, and in almost getting caught without getting caught.
The data is 1's and 0's. Life is the jazz."
-- Datatech Sinder Roze,
"Infobop"
Maybe next they can liberate all the data held hostage in the Windows Registry? Maybe they can kidnap Ballmer and hold him hostage until he cries uncle-Bill? They could tie him to a chair and then throw it around the room.
it says gmail is liberated - but they turned off extracting chat a couple of years back.
http://pictureisunrelated.com/2009/09/15/if-i-have-to-live-with-this-image-so-do-you/ ;)
(Click at your own risk. But we all must live with that picture now.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.