Mashable and Dave Winer are also talking about Social Network Portability and unlocking data silos.

Dave says:

Then vendors who have been on the right side of this issue will be the heroes.

It happened with copy protection, a similar issue to data lock-in. One vendor with a very popular product took the lead in challenging the more established companies. Borland, with Sidekick, was the product that broke the dam. Users wised up and refused to buy products that were copy protected. It could happen again.

I am so glad this issue is finally getting some traction. As I have said many times on this blog - while Facebook has gone some way to letting apps in, they are still far from allowing data and users out.

As reported, some very smart people are working on the problem. And of course there is APML.