When someone sends you a mailer saying a new concept of the World Wide Web (www) is here, you take it with tons of skepticism. Curiosity invariably gets to you when the mailer says the open web ‘Solid’ project is by none other than Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) w3.org, the place of Web standards. Its stipulated mission is “to reshape the Web as we know it.”
So you visit the Website. There’s the one-liner – ‘Solid will foster a new breed of applications with capabilities above and beyond anything that exists today,’ & your curiosity is piqued.
The idea behind developing the open Internet Solid is to restore the use of the free Net in favor of, well, users.
Sir Berners-Lee writes…..
Solid changes the current model where users have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value. As we’ve all discovered, this hasn’t been in our best interests. Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance — by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way.
Solid is a platform, built using the existing web. It gives every user a choice about where data is stored, which specific people and groups can access select elements, and which apps you use. It allows you, your family and colleagues, to link and share data with anyone. It allows people to look at the same data with different apps at the same time.
Solid is guided by the principle of “personal empowerment through data” which, according to Sir Berners-Lee was fundamental to the success of the next era of the Web.
The overriding thought behind Solid is that data should empower each of us.
Now just imagine this today – if all your current apps talked to each other, collaborated & found ways to enrich your personal life as well as your business goals? That’s the kind of innovation, intelligence & creativity the Solid apps will generate, claims its developer.
With Solid, you will have far more personal agency over data — you decide which apps can access it. Within the Solid ecosystem, YOU decide where you store your data. Photos you take, comments you write, contacts in your address book, calendar events, how many miles you run each day from your fitness tracker… they’re all stored in your Solid POD.
Here’s How It Works:
This Solid POD can be in your house or workplace, or with an Online Solid POD provider of your choice. Since you own your data, you’re free to move it at any time.
You give people & your apps permission to read or write to parts of your Solid POD. So whenever you’re opening up a new app, you don’t have to fill out your details ever again: they are read from your POD with your permission. Things saved through one app are available in another: you never have to sync, because your data stays with you.
According to the makers of Solid, this method protects your privacy & also is a plus for developers: they can build cool apps without harvesting massive amounts of data first. Anyone can create an app that leverages what is already there.
Only time will tell whether this alternative version of the World Wide Web will succeed in today’s world of monopolies of certain tech world. Keep watching this space for updates on this.
Image Credit: Solid
