[OpenID board] Fwd: Memo to OpenID: Keep it simple, please

[David Recordon]

Memo to OpenID: Keep it simple, please
  Webware.com 12/2/08 1:43 PM Caroline McCarthy

With all the buzz about Facebook Connect this week, it's worth asking  
the question: Whatever happened to OpenID?

The universal login standard was created in 2005 by Brad Fitzpatrick,  
founder of LiveJournal, while he was working at blog software company  
Six Apart. (Fitzpatrick now works at Google; Six Apart has since sold  
LiveJournal.) It has the support of Yahoo, MySpace (which just helped  
build an OpenID extension for the Flock browser), and President-elect  
Barack Obama's Change.gov. Even Google has dipped its proverbial toe  
in the pool.

But it wasn't until Facebook Connect started making headlines that the  
concept of data portability--a single login across multiple sites-- 
made the jump from the tech press to the mainstream media. OpenID,  
some speculated, had been left behind in the dust.

Hardly. But Wired's Michael Calore hit the nail on the head on Monday:  
"Presenting a dialog that asks a user to log in to one website using a  
name and password from another website is jarring, but Facebook has  
managed to keep Facebook Connect simple enough for everyday users to  
understand. Such ease of use virtually guarantees it will win support  
quickly."

The truth is, the future of the "social Web" is in expansion. And  
expansion invariably involves dealing with a crowd beyond the  
Twittering, FriendFeeding, WordPressing geeks who actually understand  
the concept behind data portability.

And that's not made any easier by the fact that OpenID calls itself  
"an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital  
identity." Try bringing that up in the boardroom of a non-tech company  
looking to ride the social-networking wave. Then tell them that the  
most buzzed-about social network on the planet will power your site's  
social features. The decision will probably fall in the Facebook camp,  
unfortunately for the open-standards crowd and its admirable  
dedication to all things balanced and democratic.

"Nobody should own this. Nobody's planning on making any money from  
this," Fitzpatrick has said about OpenID. "The goal is to release  
every part of this under the most liberal licenses possible, so  
there's no money or licensing or registering required to play. It  
benefits the community as a whole if something like this exists, and  
we're all a part of the community."

But your average company is probably going to care more about profit  
margins than OpenID's decentralized ideal, and the possibility of  
having its user activity broadcast across Facebook members' news feeds  
is tantalizing. Especially during tough financial times, strategy will  
likely trump idealism.

That said, there are some good signs for OpenID. It has a ton of  
support in the tech world, and if Facebook Connect's impending  
expansion goes awry for any reason--think Beacon--it could open up a  
whole new set of doors for OpenID. What it (and other open Web  
standards) needs either way is some image repair.

"Facebook is trying to replace all logins with their own, and control  
the creation, distribution and application of the social graph using  
their proprietary platform," Chris Saad, whose DataPortability  
Workgroup has put its support behind OpenID and other open Web  
standards, wrote in a blog post. "The most scary part of this, is that  
while Facebook is quietly and methodically building out this vision  
with massive partners, the standards community is busy squabbling  
about naming the open alternative."

OpenID and its brethren could use a good, simplified marketing pitch,  
not to mention some announcements and partnerships that are more  
prominent than an extension for a niche Web browser. They need to use  
the resources that the likes of MySpace and Yahoo can provide to get  
more deals going and start making headlines outside of ReadWriteWeb  
and TechCrunch.

And most importantly, in a recession, "it's good for the Web, so it's  
good for everyone" just isn't concrete enough. One last tip for  
OpenID: Start talking business benefits.




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