It is a big day 11-11-11 for many reasons. One is that Personal emerged out of closed beta. Yeah! When I first met and talked with Shane Green, I was so excited because I met a kindred spirit who shared core beliefs with the community around IIW (user-centric identity, VRM etc). I knew after spending 5 hours in 2 days talking to him that with his experience, personal leadership, and the funding they had already secured (from Steve Case and others) that they were going to make a big splash when it finally launched.
As a bonus, the whole topic of Personal Data got coverage in AdAge yesterday mentioning both Personal and Reputation.com in an article:
Why Your Personal Data Is The New Oil
I think the biggest thing Personal has going for it its focus on design and usability. Wire protocols (the technical bits of moving data and formatting it) are easy compared to how people can easily understand%2