Would you like to know more about the different options available for an OpenID account? SpreadOpenID.org is a great looking project aiming to make it easy to learning about and chose a provider for OpenID. Did you hear that? Someone has finally begun a project dedicated to communicating clearly and accessibly about OpenID! Today is a beautiful day.
If you're not familiar with OpenID - it's a single-sign-on system that lets you log in to any website that supports OpenID. The site you sign into just checks with your trusted OpenID provider, to whom you provide your password to prove you're you. Many websites will let you associate an OpenID within a unique account you create with them and log in with either your unique user name and password, or through OpenID . Basecamp does it this way, for example. After you create a Basecamp account, you can add an OpenID to that account just like you would a profile photo. You can then use that OpenID to login instead of using your Basecamp username and password. That's one way it's done.
That's just the begining of what you can do with OpenID. It's a little hard to explain - thus the need for efforts like SpreadOpenID. Once you use it, you'll understand it intuitively. There are still many options of OpenID vendors to chose between, however, many of which offer different advanced features.
SpreadOpenID was started by Germans Carsten Poetter and Thomas Huhn. Huhn is the founder of lifestreaming service Lifestrea.ms, which we gave an admiring review here in November.
Right now there are two basic offerings on the site. The first is a survey of 11 OpenID providers and a list of URLs for major vendors who let users use their accounts as OpenID (like AIM, Orange, WordPress).
The survey of dedicated OpenID vendors is awesome, covering the basics like security and login requirements but also asking whether the provider offers advanced (and important) features like multiple personas and search-friendly microformats.
Accounts with multiple personas mean you can choose what parts of your data to expose to each different site you login to with your OpenID. Some of Robert Scoble's friends might appreciate that, for example.
The second half of the site is a list of technical terms and basic explanations of them. This is quite helpful.
This is a project of the sort that many people working on OpenID have discussed for a long time. It's high time that someone take a stab at it. SpreadOpenID does a good job right out of the gate. There's a whole lot of room for improvement, particularly in the presentation of the information - but I think you'll appreciate it just the way it is already.
Comments
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It is very unfortunate, that at least in my experience, OpenID is fraught with all kinds of usability problems.
Shall I enumerate? Doesn't work each time for every login, rejects credentials, more.
A great idea that needs more refinement in execution.
Posted by: Alan Wilensky | January 3, 2008 11:48 PM
If you're interested in comparing OpenID providers, check my comparison from September here.
My other posts related to OpenID might also be interesting for you: Hands on experience implementing OpenID and Outstanding issues with OpenID and tips
Posted by: TTLNews | January 4, 2008 12:56 AM
While on the stopic ... here is a good tip about on how-to-make-your-blog-url-as-your-open-id
http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/openid-for-dummies-get-personal-openid-url/1892/
Posted by: Nikhil Kulkarni | January 4, 2008 1:18 AM
From my own personal experiences, and from every developer I've talked to:
OpenID is much too difficult to use, and has been riddled with problems.
OpenID is damn hard to implement into a website.
There is no clear documentation, other than the white docs, that I've seen that fully explains the OpenID system in plain english to regular site users.
Alan nailed it.
Posted by: James Thomas | January 4, 2008 1:35 AM
I just dont get openid at all. I think you nailed it when you said "It's a little hard to explain", which usually means its purpose is unclear.
Surely the point of openid is to end the pain of different log in details for every site, so "1 username and password for every site"? But it clearly does not work like that at all, I find it, in fact, more of a pain than just remembering my usual log in details.
If it cannot do this right its future seems bleak.
Coincidentally, here is my experience today trying out openid on the basecamp site:
1. Go to basecamp login page
2. Does not accept my details, guess I forgot something
3. Mail for reminder
4. See "use openid" link, click to give it a try
5. Put in my id, Go!
6. Takes me to my provider to log in there (eh?)
7. Login to my openid provider
8. Asks me to verify if I want to allow this site to use my id for the session or forever (well its pretty pointless for a session I think), starting to get very irritated
9. click "forever", takes me back, again, to basecamp
10. Basecamp tells me I need to register my openid with my account (logging in with my regular username) before I can relogin with my openid.
11. Curse the system, check my email for my regular username/password reminder so I can login as usual.
Sound like a winner to you?
Posted by: Ian Wilson | January 4, 2008 2:18 AM
OpenID is a strange phenomena because it's something that should be embraced more enthusiastically. Personally, I just embraced OpenID after running into a few blogs that offered it as an option when you want to make a comment. Why OpenID hasn't gained more traction is a mystery but perhaps this project will start to resonate with some people.
Posted by: Mark Evans | January 4, 2008 4:27 AM
Ian, thanks for your detailed comment about using OpenID with Basecamp, or trying to at least. Basecamp is my favorite example - actually. You were so close in the scenario you described! You've inspired me to add a section to this post about how Basecamp does it, in fact. Good luck!
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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January 4, 2008 8:40 AM
Hmmm....I haven't had this issue at all.
Oh? Riddled? Explain?
Says who? I've implemented it in a few and am working on an openid commenting plugin for textpattern. It's not hard at all.
Why would "regular site users" need anything more than the marketing materials? And why would developers need any less than the specifications provided in the white papers so that they can clearly communicate with other OpenID providers and consumers?
Posted by: Walker Hamilton | January 4, 2008 8:41 AM
Setting up an OpenID account isn't much more difficult than doing the same at Amazon but, believe me, it'll be worth more in time.
So far, probably only half a dozen websites that I visit fairly regularly are clued up on OpenID.
But that's just the *first* six sites that I don't have to remember the username, email address and password I've already chosen. All I've got now are ONE url and ONE password.
It'll be interesting to see what other information we'll be encouraged (and maybe even paid) to supply about ourselves.
And if you don't fancy letting a webstore know your postal address, you can easily refuse.
Wonder if I should add my mobile phone number as another personna...
:)
So, erm, how come RWW doesn't accept OpenID?
Posted by: HeavyLight
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January 4, 2008 4:03 PM
yup, intuition confirmed, another thing i dont need, thanks guys
Posted by: gregory | January 5, 2008 1:09 AM
OpenID has been nothing but good for me. I set it up originally as a test and quickly had the benefit in Basecamp of being able to see all the Basecamps (not projects) which I was part of as a new top bar in Basecamp. As in any given week I need to be part of 5 different Basecamp accounts this was a godsend. What I got after that was ease of account setup on the occasional site that supports OpenID.
I've had no problems but can see why someone would think it's too complicated to bother with. The crux of it is that without some other layer of supporting technology (perhaps some sort of browser integration) it may never see extremely wide-spread adoption, however I think it's already serving the needs of a small group of web pros and that number will grow.
Loren
Posted by: Loren Johnson | January 5, 2008 7:56 AM
Our new service http://id7r.com , currently beta, is an effort that we believe will make openid easier for end user to understand and use. Please give it a try.
Posted by: John | January 5, 2008 1:28 PM
If you ask me, OpenID.net is a much better place to point people who want information than this spreadopenid site.
Posted by: Udi | January 6, 2008 8:20 PM