Bloggers are buzzing about Facebook’s decision today to dispatch a representative to join the DataPortability Workgroup, a group of coders working to develop standards that would allow web users to transport their friend lists, photos and other media between social networking sites. Google, the search engine, and Plaxo, a web site that lets users share their personal contacts, also announced they would join the group.

But most of the attention has fallen on Facebook, which in the past had favoured a closed approach in which it would not allow its data to be easily ’scraped’ for transfer between sites. Just last week, it blocked the account of Robert Scoble, the popular tech-blogger, after he used a tool made by Plaxo, the web contacts company, to mine his Facebook profile for his user information.

Facebook has not yet said whether today’s move represents a wholesale embrace of data portability, or whether it represents something less than that. But if the response around the blogosphere is any guide, many industry-watchers are excited about the prospect of the fast-growing social network jumping on the portability bandwagon.

"Today changes everything you

Gadget4Life Latest

• Last Week’s Top Posts
• Vendors Shipped 13% Less Mobiles in Q4 2008
• One of the problems with buying an open source company…
• Grapevine boy sets Guitar Hero world record
• 25 Random Things: New meme explained