Commercial incentive is a powerful force, and in the race for our web identities there is no exception. Over the weekend the OpenID Foundation announced that they are having its first election of community board members. Meanwhile Facebook and Google have launched their own identity services that enable users to instantly log in to any site with third-party accounts. Google Friend Connect uses open standards while Facebook Connect uses it’s own identity confirmation system.
It appears as though both systems have somewhat avoided the OpenID discussion and have simply moved forward with their own model. The reality is that users want to log in with their existing accounts from other sites rather than use a new identity protocol. If you think about it, you probably log in to multiple accounts daily using just your Google or Yahoo! account. It would be easy to simply extend those services to the rest of the web.
The problem with that model, or so says the OpenID supporters, is that the individuals don’t get to own their identity. Unfortunately though, most individuals don’t even understand what owning their identity is all about. When I added a Facebook Connect widget to AllFacebook last week, I had hundreds of people simply log in out of curiosity. They didn’t realize what was taking place behind the scenes necessarily and simply wanted to see how it worked.
So should OpenID be launching their own widget campaign? Most definitely! The group seems to still be in the process of organizing though (view nominations here). I used to be a huge advocate of OpenID and I honestly believe that there is still a lot of movement going on. Unfortunately though I think the group is over planning and under executing. While some large organizations (Yahoo! included) are supporting the identity standard, there is still a lack of general consumer education. Without that there is no way OpenID can compete with Facebook Connect and other new standards.
Add New Comment
Viewing 7 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
The whole reason why webmasters would be interested in federated identity systems is because they could get a higher participation rate then they would get from a normal log-in process.
With FB Connect, you can tell people what to do, they do it, then they are logged in. With OpenID you end up giving people so many choices that they'll be overwhelmed. By the time they figure out what to do, they'll have forgotten that they wanted to participate on your site.
OpenID has been a dangerous diversion for companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft -- all of them have had the opportunity to build a usable system that users can actually use, but they blew it.
I can see OpenID having a place in the "enterprise" market where employees at Company A can log into services provided by Company B using company A's infrastructure. However, GFC and other systems based on OpenID are going to be quickly eclipsed by Facebook connect unless they turn 180 degrees and realize that OpenID provides a user interface that most users would find irrelevant and oppressive.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
OpenID combined with OAuth, PortableContacts and OpenSocial APIs are the Open Stack foundations that Friend Connect is built atop.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
What would happen to someone if they got kicked from facebook for breaching terms and conditions, and they relied on that user details to log-in to other sites? Stuck then I guess.
FaceBook is doing anything to get market share currently IMO. We'll see what happens...
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
And those "other new standards" would be?
Add New Comment
Trackbacks