"What do files have to do with social computing? Historically, not a lot- until recently. But first, a shoutout to files. Files, as originally invented, were not meant to live inside the apps. Since files represent your creations, they should live somewhere that you control. Apps create and read your files on your behalf, but files don't belong to the apps. Files belong to you-the person using those apps."
"Apps (and their developers) may not own your files, but they do need to be able to read and write them. To do that reliably, apps need your files to be structured. This is why app developers, as part of creating apps, may invent and evolve file formats. A file format is like a language. An app might "speak" several formats. A single format can be understood by many apps."
Files originate from personal computing and represent user creations that should reside under user control. Apps create and read files on users' behalf but do not own those files. Structured file formats allow apps to read and write user files reliably. File formats act as APIs enabling many-to-many relationships between apps and formats, so different apps can interoperate without direct integration. SVG is an example of an open specification that multiple tools can read and write and that browsers can render without contacting the creating app. Some formats are proprietary or undocumented, yet motivated developers can reverse-engineer them.
Read at Overreacted
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