[OpenID] Check out how the LA Times is promoting registration using third party accounts

[Brian Kissel]

Hi Nate,

Completely understand and agree with the need for a different approach
near term for academic institutions, and for the market overall long term.
I think that the discovery work that the OpenID Foundation is doing in
this area will help address your use case and encourage you to
participate: https://wiki.openid.net/OpenID-Discovery

We also hope that the "quick fix" doesn't become the permanent fix, but
are trying to respond to near term RP requests for a solution that works
today for commercial websites and their end users/customers/members.  If
you have any recommendations on how a SaaS solutions like RPX could meet
the need of academic institutions with a much larger base of relevant OPs,
we'd welcome the suggestions.  Also copying Vidya Shivkumar, our Director
of Product Management if you'd like to share ideas with us directly.

Cheers,

Brian
___________

Brian Kissel
CEO - JanRain, Inc.
bkissel at janrain.com
Mobile: 503.342.2668 | Fax: 503.296.5502
519 SW 3rd Ave. Suite 600  Portland, OR 97204

Increase registrations, engage users, and grow your brand with RPX.  Learn
more at www.rpxnow.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Nate Klingenstein [mailto:ndk at internet2.edu]
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 8:09 AM
To: Brian Kissel
Cc: Bill Shupp; openid-general at lists.openid.net
Subject: Re: [OpenID] Check out how the LA Times is promoting registration
using third party accounts

Brian,

Six is a very small set in number of identity sources, yes.  We're
dealing with a different problem space entirely in academia, where
we're hitting severe scaling issues with sets in the thousands.

I appreciate the realities of dealing in the consumer world, and that
six is a larger number than the common one or two.  But I feel
compelled to speak out because the quick fix often becomes the
permanent fix.

Indeed, this fix isn't even really quick anymore: the discovery
problem has been known for awhile, and you folks at JanRain have made
it one of your primary foci.  Buttons hitched to large providers with
a variety of back-end protocols are becoming the dominant, accepted
solution in the consumer world, and that simply doesn't work for more
decentralized identity.

If the Foundation is doing everything it can to encourage RP's to
accept OpenID as a generalized concept, and that's just not flying --
because the discovery's not good enough yet, or the smaller providers
just aren't interesting or compelling, or otherwise -- then I guess
there isn't much more that can be done.  We'll keep working on the
larger problem on the academic federation side, and I'll do everything
I can to push for collaboration as soon as a more general solution
than "click me" emerges.

Thanks for the response,
Nate.

On Apr 21, 2010, at 4:58 PM, Brian Kissel wrote:

> In fact an overwhelming choice becomes counterproductive from
> their perspective unless/until there is a better UX and workflow as
> well
> as benefits for supporting a larger number of OPs.