A group of developers have started WebFinger, an open source project to revive finger by implementing it atop HTTP. Although finger was historically used for supplying contact information and personal news, similar to personal blogs, a new webfinger + online storage gives users the ability to consolidate their online persona and retain ownership of content such as photos, videos, blog posts, and personal opinions. This is a step towards reclaiming personal ownership of online content and not filling out the same personal information and preferences for every site or social network platform.
Decentralization and privacy while leveraging collaboration tools such as social networks needs to be the future of the Internet.