Will OpenID Lose to Facebook Connect?
Posted by Nick O'Neill on December 3rd, 2008 2:02 PM
It was an inevitable that a company would come along an release a standard for single sign on that had the financial backing to go build strong partnerships and more importantly, mainstream buzz. Yesterday Caroline McCarthy highlighted some of the challenges facing OpenID and I have to say the battle between Facebook and the open standards community is about to get pretty fierce.
So far hundreds if not thousand of sites have implemented OpenID but unfortunately most people don’t know what the service is. One of the main reasons? A lack of a centralized public relations team to spread the word and little incentive for any of the participants to join. It’s a great service but it doesn’t have the more than 120 million (or probably 130 million) users that Facebook now has.
Facebook also ended up with a huge New York Times article earlier this week and that kicked off the buzz about the service. Take a look at the Twitter buzz for Facebook Connect and you’ll see that people are now talking about a service which one week ago was practically unheard of for many. Whether or not that buzz will sustain is another question but it’s clear that Facebook has a very good chance of becoming the default login for many.
It’s also good to keep in mind that a branded single sign on model was attempted before by Microsoft with their Passport network and that failed miserably. The company tried again this year with Microsoft Live ID but that hasn’t seen much traction either. Many tech enthusiasts love to postulate about the day when single sign on becomes mainstream but despite the occasional buzz over the past few years, nothing has really gained traction.
Back in January I wrote about Yahoo supporting OpenID but since then there has been little talk about it. Are users adopting the standard? There’s also the whole issue of trying to be an individual’s OpenID provider and that has resulted in competition among the existing email providers. None of the large companies have bothered to educate users about what OpenID is though so there has been little mainstream adoption.
Facebook on the other hand is simply placing a button which essentially says “sign on with Faebook” and that’s it. It doesn’t require much explaining. So while I believe that Facebook has a great shot at becoming the primary identity provider on the web, there is still a long battle ahead before anything can be possibly called “the standard”. Centralized identity management is an area still ripe for the taking.
FriendFeed References: 3 Comments & 5 Likes show
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.
It makes sense that Facebook would attempt to do so, but we don't want to put this kind of control into the hands of one company! If we do this, then we deliver yet another blow to the whole concept of Open Source in general! Authentication should remain open.
Besides, don't forget Beacon!
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Moreover signing in with Yahoo! ID or Google account can be done the same way as Facebook Connect - via simple text-link or image.
I hope OpenID will withstand the monopolistic Facebook.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
So interesting that a short time ago Microsoft (A closed source company) wanted to push forward a standard (Passport) that would have give users the ability to have one log in that worked for many sites. At the time many in the tech and development community saw this as just another Microsoft Land Grab for our Identity and our Content. Many people saw Passport a Microsoft effort to finally gain control of the internet by becoming the standard for digital identity.
Today we have no less than 3 closed source companies in a race to become the "Standard" for holding or Identity and therefore having access to the content that we read and the content that we creates.
All of this at a time when there are many Open Source standards that could be used (Openid is just one that comes to mind) that if properly deployed would do the right thing by putting the user/member in charge of their log in as well as their relationships across many sites.
Have we forgotten the lesson of the not so distance past ?
Why do we not see a problem with the big 3 trying to become the proprietary standard in this very important area ?
Why do developers especially Open Source developers continue to build and extend applications for closed source companies that under mind open source standards and ideals ?
Why do users continue to view giving control of their identity and content to these companies as a win, when in fact the win is clearly on the side of the company that you have allowed to take control of your identity and to generate value and revenue from your content. In return for our compliance we do not even have a right to take our identity and our content where we want.
At adelph.us we believe in members freedom to control their accounts, and their content. We also believe that any revenue model should always put the members in the equation first. We believe in the Open Source community and ideals. We know we are not the smartest guys in the room and trust the our community of members and developers.
Break the chains of the old web 2.0 model. Do not give your content or your software development work to closed source old world companies that only seek to profit from you and your content
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks