WebFinger to free them all
Oh how I love what is currently coming out of Google. I mean Pubsub Hubbub is already nice, and now WebFinger, with Brad Fitzpatrick again. Brett Slatkin seems to be in on it too and Techcrunch has a good rundown on what this is about.
I still remember having used Finger (and Gopher to be exact ;)) in the early days. Especially when studying physics it was nice just taking a look at whether somebody was on his computer or something. So this is perfect to be extended to the web.
Here is a good intro as well as an implementation guideline on Hueniverse. Seems to be easy enough. It doesn’t allow for real portability but that is really why you should have your own domain anyway and give that one out and have WebFinger on your own Domain, so that you can move the underlying system around.
So another thing to monitor. Grrr…. fun stuff coming out.

