The web is aging. I remember the day my co-founder at SelectMinds, Steve Richmond, first pointed me to the new search engine, Google, in 1999. I also remember setting up my first Gmail account, this blog on Typepad, my YemekSepeti account, all in 2005, my Facebook account in 2006, my Twitter account in 2007, my Runkeeper account in 2010, and my Uber account in 2012. I have had little reason to switch from these services, and continue to use them still in 2015. In the meanwhile, these services have learned about my preferences and patterns.
Most of these services publish APIs that would allow me, or a service I'd permit, suck meaningful data out of them. What is important for that service is that it knows the context of these services. Think of it as a Zapier or Unroll.me, not for connecting services to each other or unsubscribing, but for connecting them to me, so I can claim my ownership of my data growing in each of these services. Ideally, such a service would then offer me a set of tools to manage this data, provide wizards for migrating between service providers.
I am surprised such a service is not here yet. I think it would be a valuable area to tackle.
PS. Of the services listed above, Typepad will likely be the first one I abandon. I'd appreciate a tip if you know of a good tool for migrating out of Typepad.
