[OpenID] Thinking About OpenID.com

[Drummond Reed]

Brendan: good list of benefits to an RP. Best I think I've seen in one
place.

=Drummond 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: general-bounces at openid.net [mailto:general-bounces at openid.net] On
> Behalf Of Brendon J. Wilson
> Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 9:53 AM
> To: general at openid.net
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] Thinking About OpenID.com
> 
> +1 Snorri's comment.
> 
> I've been looking at OpenID for a client, and as I survey the OpenID
> landscape it's become apparent very quickly that there's lots of
> identity providers, but not a lot of relying parties. Any of the big
> players seem to be staying out of that space, with the exception of
> the blog platforms and open source CMS systems. Examples: AOL - only
> Propeller seems to have OpenID as a login option. Yahoo! - haven't
> found an OpenID login yet. All of the focus right now seems to be on
> getting people to get an OpenID.
> 
> I think any discussion of how to evangelize OpenID to the general
> public also requires the foundation to clearly articulate the value of
> being a relying party, otherwise we risk stalled growth when users
> finally decide to get an OpenID, but have nowhere to use it. JanRain
> claims 8,000 relying parties, but I've seen little justification for
> that number; OpenIDDirectory.com lists about 530 or so OpenID-related
> sites, and 60 or so of them are identity providers. Demonstrating
> value to potential relaying parties also requires showing, in no
> uncertain terms, just how many people already use it.
> 
> I'd like to propose the following strawman benefits of being a relying
> party for the group to eviscerate (warning: businesspeak ahead):
> 
> 1) Expedited customer acquisition: OpenID allows user to quickly and
> easily complete the account creation process by eliminating entry of
> commonly requested fields (email address, sex, birthdate), thus
> reducing the friction to adopt a new service.
> 
> 2) Reduced user account management costs: The primary cost for most IT
> organizations is resetting forgotten authentication credentials. By
> reducing the number of credentials, a user is less likely to forget
> their credentials. By outsourcing the authentication process to a
> third-party, the relying party can avoid those costs entirely.
> 
> 3) "Thought leadership": There is an inherent marketing value for an
> organization to associate itself activities that promote it as a
> thought leader. It provides an organization with the means to
> distinguish itself from its competitors. This is your chance to
> outpace your competitors.
> 
> 4) Your competitors are already doing it: Whoops! So you missed out on
> number 4, so you have to do it, otherwise you're falling behind the
> times. Ketchup!
> 
> 5) Simplified user experience: Logical follow on from 1 & 2. However,
> it's at the end of the list because that's not the business priority.
> The business priority is the benefit that results from a simplified
> user experience, not the simplified user experience itself.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Brendon
> ---
> Brendon J. Wilson
> www.brendonwilson.com
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