Social networks, and websites with a social element, are starting to migrate from being walled gardens towards interoperation and open standards. This is comparable to the adoption of email standards by companies such as AOL in the 1990’s.

In an interoperable world, users want to be able to move between providers with minimal friction to avoid “lock-in”. Switching email providers easily is taken for granted. Switching social networks should be just as easy.

This article gives an overview of account portability and the current state of play.