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OpenID might just be for you! OpenID hasn’t quite hit the mainstream yet and it may still be a while
before it does, but I think it has a good chance of making it.
What is OpenID?
The idea is to have one decentralized, open source, identity system that is secure and free for everyone to use. Think of it as something like Microsoft Passport, although instead of Microsoft charging and arm and a leg for non-Microsoft sites to use it, this one is free. That was probably why Passport is more or less dead these days. Anyway, I came across a good screencast today that explains it better than I can, so check that out.
The Problem with OpenID
Right now, OpenID faces two major problems that is keeping it from becoming mainstream…
Problem one: It’s still too geeky for average folks. Being the webmaster here at Klipsch, I’m a fairly tech-minded kind of guy but it took me a while to really understand how to use OpenID. The screencast mentioned above is a good step in explaining to the average user. I wish it had been around when I started messing with OpenID
Problem two: It’s not used widely enough to catch on quickly. Only a handful of sites use OpenID today. A few examples: LiveJournal, MovableType, Zooomr, Technorati, etc. (Here’s a directory of sites using it). Wikipedia says they’ll be supporting it soon as well. There are more sites adding it every day and it is catching on, but it would catch on a lot quicker if Google or Yahoo or some other large player on the Internet began supporting it. Of course, most of those companies have their own version of Passport and aren’t going to be very open to supporting OpenID. I think will eventually though.
The Future of OpenID
I do think OpenID is very promising and I feel like it has a good chance of succeeding. The thought of having only one password to remember for all the sites I login to is very appealing and I think we’ll get there someday, whether it’s with OpenID or some other identity system. I just hope that day comes sooner than later!
I know what you are thinking now…why doesn’t Klipsch use OpenID if I think it’s so great? Well, to be honest, I’ve only begun to really grasp OpenID in the last few weeks and I don’t currently have the time to implement it on our sites right now. I do hope to add it to most of sites by the end of summer though.
For more information, check out the Wikipedia entry for OpenID!
UPDATE (2/6/2007): Microsoft announced today that they would begin supporting OpenID via their CardSpace technology. I had a weird feeling that Microsoft might actually be the first big company to back it because they’ve gotten better at listening to web developers lately. Way to go Microsoft! Hopefully now, Google and Yahoo! will more seriously consider supporting OpenID!
UPDATE (2/16/2007): AOL just announced it’s plan to support OpenID. Now if Yahoo and Google would jump into the game, it would really take off.
NOTE: I originally posted this on my work blog on 2/2/2007 which is why I back dated this post. This work blog isn’t “live” as of 2/19/2007 so I decided to re-post it here.
February 2nd, 2007
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