[OpenID] Flickr users can now login with a Google account via OpenID

[Dick Hardt]

Thanks for the explanation Allen on how it works.


To summarize, this helps new users to Flickr that do NOT have a Yahoo!
account but do have a Google account and think that it would be easier to
use their existing Google account rather than creating a new Yahoo! account.
Correct?


It would be interested to hear how many users this affected and if they have
issues authenticating when they come back. Since it is not a feature
available to any other user except new users that used this method, I would
expect very low utilization and likely confusion on the assumption that most
savvy users that might want a Flickr account already have them -- and that
initial utilization will be identirati that are checking it out.


-- Dick


On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Allen Tom <allentomdude at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Dick,
>
> The primary goal of the OpenID login feature for Flickr was to *not*
> confuse the tens of millions of existing Flickr users who already login to
> Flickr using their Yahoo ID. The goal for the the initial release was to
> only expose the OpenID feature for new users who do not already have a
> YahooID, since we wanted to be able to reach new users who did not have a
> YahooID but did have an OpenID-enabled account.
>
> The original prototype of the OpenID-enabled Flickr login screen checked
> the user's browser cookies to see if the anyone had previously used a
> YahooID on the browser. If so, the Google OpenID button would be
> de-emphasized, since we did not want to potentially confuse an existing user
> (who already knows how to login to Flickr with a YahooID)  by presenting an
> additional Login option.  We also experimented with the x-has-session
> interface defined in the OpenID User Interface Extension to determine if the
> user was currently logged into Google - if the user did not have have a
> YahooID AND was currently logged into Google, we would put Google as the
> default Login option - in this case, where the user did not appear to have a
> YahooID AND was currently logged into Google - the Flickr login screen
> would prioritize the Google OpenID option as the primary call to action -
> even above the YahooID login option.
>
> We did experiment with account linking - meaning that if the user already
> had a Flickr account bound to a YahooID, and then logged in with a Google
> Account - we had a flow for the user to link the Google account with their
> existing Flickr account, without having to create a new Flickr account.
> Unfortunately, the resulting flow was very complex. Given that the primary
> business objective was to open Flickr up to users who did not already have a
> YahooID, and to get these new users out of the registration flow and engaged
> in the Flickr product ASAP, we decided to defer the account linking flow to
> a future release - after we had a chance to observe the real world
> performance of the OpenID flows. In the meantime, we decided to put in logic
> into the Flickr Login screen to de-emphasize the OpenID flow for users who
> probably already had a YahooID, with the hope that these existing users
> continue to login to Flickr with their YahooID without potentially being
> distracted by the new OpenID flow which was not intended for them.
>
> Since I no longer work at Yahoo, I'm not quite sure about the exact details
> of the finished product that launched this week, but that what the thinking
> that we had while I was on the project before I left.
>
> Hope that make sense!
> Allen
>
>
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Dick Hardt <dick.hardt at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I could not find any way to use any of my Google accounts to log into my
>>> existing Flickr account -- I only see where I can create a new Flickr
>>> account with a Google account.
>>>
>>> While it is nice to see progress -- IMHO we are a LONG ways from solving
>>> identity from the user's point of view -- and that leads to my concern --
>>> although it was alot of work to get this done -- I would be surprised if
>>> your average user would consider this an improvement -- and may lead to more
>>> confusion as they become uncertain as to which provider they have used at
>>> which site.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid-general/attachments/20101030/fd1dab56/attachment.html>