Wordpress, 37Signals Join OpenID Bandwagon
OpenID has gained two more high profile Internet company
supporters. Wordpress announced their support today
and also Chris Messina did a bit of snooping and discovered that
37Signals support is nigh. These two organizations join Digg, Microsoft,
AOL, Yahoo,
LiveJournal, MediaWiki, and others in their support of OpenID. There are still gaps -
e.g. even in today's Wordpress announcement, it's worth noting that you can't actually
sign into your Wordpress blog with an OpenID a/c. But you can (as Chris
Messina explained) use your WordPress.com URL as an OpenID elsewhere, making
WordPress.com an “identity provider”.
Remember our poll, which showed that 52% of respondants either don't have an OpenID account or don't know what it is? Well that's slowly changing - and every time a new Internet company supports OpenID, the chances of OpenID becoming the decentralized identity service of choice increase.
But as Marc Canter recently pointed out, Sxip is the loser in all this - having once been the poster child for open identity on the Web. Sxip is still claiming to be "the market leader in Identity 2.0" though - and it does seem to have a nice deal with Google, which just happens to be the only one of the Big 3 not to have jumped onto the OpenID bandwagon yet...
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Google is the "only one of the Big 3 not to have jumped onto the OpenID bandwagon yet..."?
AFAIK Yahoo don't support it either. There's a third party proxy provider which uses the Yahoo authentication API - something which I think would be possible using the Google Authentication API, too....
Posted by: Nick Lothian | March 7, 2007 1:16 AM
while i'm hopeful that OpenID catches on, i'm still skeptical it will get adopted by mainstream internet users.
ultimately, identity standards come down to just 3 things:
1) usability
2) usability
3) usability
if OpenID gets simpler/easier enough that my grandmother can use it, then maybe it will fly.
more grumpy old man thoughts here:
Silicon Valley vs Middle America
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/02/silicon_valley_.html
Posted by: dave mcclure | March 7, 2007 2:50 AM
Nick: it's possible to build idproxy.net for Google accounts, but it's not particularly pleasant as the Google auth API insists you associate with a particular Google service (Calendar for example). I actually had it working a few months ago but didn't launch it because it wasn't hugely smooth and would have made the service harder to explain. I may well revisit it in the future though.
Posted by: Simon Willison | March 7, 2007 3:28 AM
WordPress is just a producer and not consumer. I would have like if they had accepted my openId to login to wordpress.com
Posted by: Thejesh GN | March 7, 2007 4:41 AM
if OpenID gets simpler/easier enough that my grandmother can use it, then maybe it will fly.
This hits the nail on the head. I think one way OpenID could be a lot easier to use is by handholding: a lot of people aren't aware that they have an OpenID, or what their actual OpenID login is. (Logging in with a URL seems kind of counterintuitive.)
But we know what the major OpenID providers are: Wordpress, AOL, Livejournal, Typekey. So rather than just an OpenID login with the orange icon, why not give them the option to just type in their regular username if they're a member of those services? I might not know that my OpenID is openid.aol.com/my-screen-name, but I sure as hell know my AIM screen name. Why make things harder than they need to be?
We're going to be doing this on all our upcoming projects.
Posted by: Ben Werdmuller | March 7, 2007 5:04 AM
I see OpenId really booming when there is an easy script to include in my blog / site / server, so I can use my own domain as my OpenID provider.
Or even a service provided by domain registar making my domain my OpenId.
Posted by: hombrelobo | March 7, 2007 5:12 AM
http://webwebusability.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/wordpress-openid-not-really/
Wordpress' support of OpenID is not complete. While they might be an OpenID provider, I still can't sign in using any provider. This doesn't go the same way OpenID does. If that's "supporting" OpenID, then OpenID wouldn't solve the problem of single sign on...
Posted by: Diego | March 7, 2007 6:31 AM
Identity in the form of OpenID is just taking shape with i-names and Cardspace support coming together. Give it time back in January we had nothing better than a fragmented/competing set of ID standards.
I currently think about the future being a set of services together collectively termed iPALS. identity, presence, attention, location, services with each part co-existing.
Finally as for Google they will be typically arrogant and will probably only use something that they invented in-house e.g why create Gdata instead of extending APP.
I guess they will launch a rival to Microsoft's CardSpace add a few of their own proprietary features and then announce some sort of interoperability to OpenID. Or worse still Google will announce support only for i-names just as they begrudgingly supported RSS and XML-RPC.
Posted by: Sam Sethi | March 7, 2007 7:29 AM
You're misreading what Marc Canter said about Sxip.
They're not losing out. Sure, their old platform is dead, but they switched fully over to pushing OpenID as their business model about a year and half ago.
So, basically, Wordpress has jumped on the bandwagon with Sxip and all the others. I'm sure Sxip's investors are very happen that they've bet on the right horse.
Microsoft is the loser in this, but they've already hedged their bets wrt. OpenID as well. Where's Apple?
Posted by: Jim Pick | March 7, 2007 8:15 AM
s/happen/happy/
Posted by: Jim Pick | March 7, 2007 8:17 AM
But how use OpenID for mobile phones (WAP pages)?
// mobiKAR.net - mobile KARAOKE
Posted by: mobiKAR.net | March 7, 2007 9:33 AM
Its great that so many people are supporting OpenID...We now need more sites to accept OpenID based authentication...
Posted by: Jitendra | March 7, 2007 2:42 PM
I have been using openid for quite sometime now and i think it will take sometime to take off.
Its great that wordpress.com now supports, just as my blog does ;-)
Cheers!
Alpesh
Posted by: Alpesh Nakar | March 7, 2007 6:07 PM
very
very
nice......
Posted by: evden eve nakliyat | March 8, 2007 12:14 PM
Great blog I have some one in mind that would be interested. Thank you.
Posted by: Gurbux Kaur | March 11, 2007 6:12 PM
look,thanks.
Posted by: pzno.com | March 29, 2007 9:04 AM
To me kazhet'sya that OPENID will not be strong rasprostronyat'sya.
Posted by: BookMap | April 15, 2007 11:21 AM