For those out there who have been following the whole OpenID, it has been pretty interesting. First the whole idea in my opinion is great, one ID to track your web-based life. At sites that support OpenID, simply setup your account and then link it to your OpenID, and then 'never' worry about all the passwords again.
My first thought was that this was great, and it would be great if this was link to say email or something. I was looking forward to when Yahoo (my primary email provider) would start supporting OpenID, but over the last month or so... I'm skipping ahead. So when I first heard about OpenID there were only a handful of providers. I found out about it through Plaxo. They recommend MyOpenId.com, so off I went to explore... and create my first ID. That too is when I thought about the fact that I wanted to connect my ID to my email...
So like I said.. OpenID it suppose to help sync and simplify our online identities, of which I have many. I have my Blogger/Google id through this blog, I've got my email id via Yahoo. I've got my blogroll id through Bloglines (well I didn't initially consider that an ID, but they do provide personal blogs so). And if you consider Bloglines and identity, then I've also got Del.icio.us, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and then there is also Plaxo.
Well so here I had my OpenID at MyOpenId.com, then Bloglines announced they were providing ID, and I think they (and Ask.com) may have been the first to provide such ID. Then a few weeks ago as groups started announcing there 2008 line ups.... many others just started announcing they were going to provide IDs. This week was the most interesting, if not just the last 2 days. Late last year OpenID2.0 was finalized, and then yesterday both Yahoo announce that they were going to provide ID (link) and Google's Blogger has done the same (link). So now here lies the dilemma... I've been using Yahoo as my personal email for years... starting back in HighSchool so while I have a nice alias that points at my yahoo id, my ID is an old highschool name from my BBS days.... Now my Google/Blogger ID I've been using is more of the kind of web ID that I've been using as of late. Most new account logins use the same username especially sights that I comment on and such. So which to use....
Well that brings me back to my topic... at first there weren't enough ID providers, and now there are too many to choose from. The funnier part is that the one company that introduced me to the notion of OpenID and OpenSocial for that matter was Plaxo. Plaxo is a my synchronization of life. My yahoo, google, aim, and local addressbooks and calendars are all synced through Plaxo. My blogs, del.icio.us, flickr and twitter, are sync through Plaxo Pulse. SO if anything, Plaxo is my single ID, so while they accept OpenID and were one of the first to do so... why don't they provide??? Oh well I guess even with all the syncing and simplifying Plaxo and OpenID do, it makes sense to not connect your OpenID to a very public arena. I guess having a OpenID only provider will help insure security... The bottom line is, while it is a good thing that OpenID is now out in the open with thanks to BigWeb (Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc)... I've decided I like my quieter OpenID provider MyOpenID.com . That all said, I think if I ever did switch my OpenID to another provider, at this point it will only happen if Plaxo becomes a provider.
OpenID: what it is
List of OpenID providers can be found here.
List of site allowing OpenIDs here and here.
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