The Future of Personal WebsitesFri, 3 Jul 2009

Personal websites are becoming more and more popular every year. With more and more individuals choosing to own their domain names as an extension to their personal web presence and identities.

Individuals are starting to explore the possibilities of having their websites, blogs, wikis, tumblelogs & file backup systems. People are now sharing information, thoughts, ideas and private lives online. But what is the future of all this?

"There is Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn, Last.fm, Flickr, BigAdda, Friendster, Hi5, Orkut, LiveJournal... Does an individual really need to give out their personal data to so many different social networks?"

The propping up of a new social network almost everyday has lead the web community to start to think about the serious questions about security of personal information on the internet. Social networking is now big business for the providers. Every year, billions of dollars are earned by providers by using the information provided by individuals. As the web grows everyday, there are a variety of services provided by third party companies. Services ranging from money management, blogs, synchronization services etc. What are the ethics behind using someone else's private information? Are these big providers trustworthy?

Remembering umpteen usernames and passwords has become a headache for all. Compatability of data with different applications from separate third party companies is always a tussle at best.

We at Arigel software are big believers of data privacy. Since the emergence of cloud computing, every individual wants all their information available on demand where ever they are independent of the machine they use. Every individual also wants their private information to be private, easily accessible and not sold on to hundreds of companies.

"Your private and public data should be secure on your own servers or private domains"

The features of any modern day Operating Systems allow for anyone to be able to setup their own web servers. Every individual can setup their own system for a variety of services. We at Arigel Software believe this is how future personal websites will become. A vast repository of personal data that is held by the individual themselves. Without the fear of having information being sold to the highest bidder. With the freedom of their own data available to them on demand anywhere. With the choice of what information is available to the public and what is kept private.

A repository/diary/filemanager/calendar/music libary that is unique to the individual. Software that will allow the user to decide on which guests can view their information and to what degree. Making private domains an extension of the individual, like their own homes.

Maybe someday, every web user won't have to sign up for 100 different web networks and services. Someday, every person on earth will have their data private and secured. Someday, every individual will have their own search engine, calendar system, file manager, encrypted data all available to them on their own private server.

Every individual having their own web services that will allow them to share and create their own social networks, share music with their friends, work on projects together and be able to access that old picture of school friend stored somewhere in their private server without any third party. Someday.