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The ability to export or access data via several or many different media. In HR jargon portability refers to the ability of an employee to hold on to benefits, such as a pension or insurance, when changing employers, but the buzzword's real resonance is in the world of digital marketing, where it has undergone several mutations. It first referred simply to IT applications that could run on more than one system, but now means the potential to replicate a piece of content such as a video or audio-clip, or a service such as a booking facility across a number of devices, through multiple channels.

In more abstract terms, it also means moving from a hub-and-spoke or one-to-many model of data distribution, whereby a centralised commercial service grants access to peripheral third parties, to a future in which users can access information or services at various autonomous touchpoints — a so-called many-to-many or peered distribution model, heralding a new era of free interoperability and reusability on the web.

Send your buzzwords, jargon and new and exotic usages 
to tony.thorne@kcl.ac.uk

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