Whose Data Is It?

On July 6, 2011, in HRExaminer, by John Sumser

Whose data is it? Social Media on HRExaminer

The recent LinkedIN API dustup (they blocked Monster, Branchout and a host of others from using ‘their data’) and Facebook’s decision to limit the exporting of Friend data are gearshift moments. (A gearshift moment is a predictable part of evolution: once your engine is moving at a certain speed, you shift gears). They indicate the realities of the future of social media.

The issue has been pooh-poohed as boring; and dramatized as war. The whole thing will never have the attention of more than a few hundred OCD followers of the tea leaves. One could be excused for seeing the actions as simple exercises in competitive dynamics.

David Manaster concludes:

This move by LinkedIn will not greatly hurt either BranchOut or Monster’s services in any big way — importing a resume was just a convenience for their users, who can still create profiles the old-fashioned way. But its a clear sign that LinkedIn recognizes that these services are taking aim squarely at its market, and that it won’t just roll over and let them do it.

While the vendors posture amongst themselves and for their bankers, I’m wondering something different.

This weekend, I invested a bunch of time trying to figure out Google+, the new ‘Facebook killer’. Like any new digital tool, the thing only works if you use it. You can only make sense out of what it does when you try to solve a problem that will harness one or more features. Throughout the process, I wanted to be able to harvest the investments I’ve made at Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Guess what? It’s really hard to leverage the actual work I’ve done. I can’t easily import or export pictures, tags, comments, friends, links, connections, recommendations or messages. I can’t build on the actual work I’ve done. Somehow, the fact that I’ve worked within a system gives the owner of that system what amounts to a virtual title to my work.

I don’t like it very much. I want more control over my work product. I want my investment to be worth more than zero if I choose to move to a new place.

What are my options? I can destroy it. I can export it into a form that can’t be imported elsewhere. I can copy and paste stuff (if the old material is even available). But I can’t seamlessly build on the work that I’ve done.

That’s a bad idea.

In the beginning of the Internet explosion, there were a lot of closed systems. Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL, the Well each had their turn in the limelight. Several of them grew to astonishing size and clout.

All of them peaked and failed. Why? They were closed systems with no way out.

And so, what we’ve learned this week is that we are dealing with a bunch of closed systems that are going to peak and fail

About the author

John Sumser

John Sumser is the founder, principal author and editor-in-chief of the HRExaminer Online Magazine. John explores the people, technology, ideas and careers of senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital. John is the also principal of Two Color Hat where he routinely advises Human Resources, Recruiting Departments and Talent Management teams with product analysis, market segmentation, positioning, strategy and branding guidance.

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  • http://www.carveconsulting.com/ Paul Harrison Carve Consulting

    Great point on closed vs. open systems. I’ve always felt that LinkedIn didn’t ever *really* identify itself as a ‘social network’, and its becoming clear that Linkedin would prefer a world with just Linkedin in it. 

  • http://twitter.com/awils Amy Wilson

    I like your distinction between data and work.  It’s not a matter of data ownership – something that is easily replicated (and also avoided by non-participation), but rather work ownership. And, I’d also argue that it’s not just the time invested in making the app work for us, but the identity and reputation that we’ve worked to obtain through postings, comments, etc.

  • Anonymous

    The big problem with open versus closed systems, as I see it, isn’t so much whether John or any other individual owns the content that he’s posted to those systems. Most would agree that he does, at least in part, as he can always remove his content from the system and keep copies of it on his own computer. Yet the terms of service on those sites are pretty clear in that the sites also own the content once you’ve posted it to them. So it isn’t a situation where John owns the data OR the social media site owns the data. It is, instead, a situation where both own the data.

    John is free to re-post his photos, resume, etc. to Monster or anywhere else but if he wants to post it to Monster he can’t expect the help of Facebook as Facebook isn’t getting paid for that. Perhaps that’s the solution. If Monster wants data from Facebook or LinkedIn, then Monster should pay for that data.

    I attended the Jobs2web Collaborative 2011 annual conference a couple of weeks ago and founder Doug Berg spoke about integrating Jobs2web’s talent community (actually, it is more of a talent pool as there is no community between the group members) and how he envisions his employer clients being able to pull data from LinkedIn into their Jobs2web talent communities and then getting members of their talent communities to pull data in about their friends. In a nutshell, Doug seemed to envision creating a software bridge between Jobs2web and LinkedIn through LinkedIn’s API so that his employer clients would have easy, free access to one of the world’s biggest resume banks a/k/a LinkedIn’s profiles. What struck me wasn’t the benefit that would accrue to Job2web or its clients as that was pretty obvious and not lost on the attendees but instead that Doug stated pretty clearly that he’d like to see LinkedIn charge for that API access. In effect, Doug wants to pay for the data that he can now get for free, or perhaps could have gotten for free until a week or so ago. Doug recognizes that in the long-term, LinkedIn needs to generate revenue if it is going to be able to continue to collect all of this valuable data and then share it with other sites which could have made the same investment in money and time but chose instead to download (steal?) the data in violation of LinkedIn’s terms of service. Rather than focusing on open versus closed, Doug correctly identified the real issue: money. If the data is worth something to Monster or any other site — and it surely is — they should pay for it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/RogueRecruiter David Perry

    So who’s liable if the data causes fallout?  Nice post John.  Thanks. And great questions Steven.  

  • Paul Baribeau

    I don’t think it’s fair to compare the free “closed system” of Facebook to the pay-for-access closed system of something like Compuserve. Compuserve customers pretty much had to choose between CIS or or the World Wide Web. WWW obviously won out.

    Facebook customers, on the other hand, don’t have to pay a nickel more if they want to use both Facebook and Google+. The two aren’t necessarily in competition.I do agree that it shouldn’t be so hard to get your data back, though.

  • http://www.hrexaminer.com John Sumser

    The “cost” is my time and focus. That”s more valuable than money

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