<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Perhaps what I mean with "customer promise" is included in your definition of "product". Not in mine though ;-)<div><br></div><div>Come to think of it, Visa isn't a product at all. CitiGroup World Visa (or whatever they might call it, I made up this term) is a product. As are tons of other cards with different feature sets from all the world's banks, all showing the same Visa logo in a corner, but only a corner. They all share the same customer promise ("can use where Visa logo is displayed") but not product (different colors, materials, sizes, payment terms ...) and might not even use the same technology (I think there are different Visa protocols in different parts of the world)</div><div><br></div><div>By analogy, openid.aol.com is a product, but OpenID is not.</div><div><br></div><div>Another advantage of the "customer promise" interpretation of OpenID: it allows us to have multiple, even overlapping, technologies underneath without positioning problems, just like Visa can have different protocols with shoestores and food stores or in different geographies. Come to think of it, we already have that in OpenID land with AX vs. SREG and it will get worse with the various "open [identity] stack" components on top.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Dec 11, 2008, at 16:58, Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div> <font face="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span style="font-size:11pt">This really falls under the product category. Visa is a product sold by multiple vendors. For OpenID to become a product, given its fundamental distributed nature, it will need to be “sold” by others.<br> <br> EHL<br> <br> <br> On 12/11/08 4:46 PM, "Johannes Ernst" <<a href="jernst+openid.net@netmesh.us">jernst+openid.net@netmesh.us</a>> wrote:<br> <br> </span></font><blockquote><font face="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span style="font-size:11pt">Specific comment on one of the many good things you are discussing:<br> <br> On Dec 11, 2008, at 14:56, Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:<br> <br> > The two main contenders for the meaning of the OpenID brand are:<br> > technology<br> > and product.<br> <br> There is another, which is "customer promise".<br> <br> Compare with "Visa".<br> <br> What is "Visa"?<br> - Visa is an (interoperability) technology, because otherwise<br> sliding me card at the shoe store would not work<br> - Visa is a product (a card), because I can order one from my bank<br> <br> But at the end of the day, both miss the essence of it.<br> <br> The way I think of Visa is as a promise to the customer. It's the<br> promise that if I do X (get the card, show the card at the shoe store,<br> pay my bill on time) then Y will happen (I get the shoes, I can<br> dispute the bill, ...)<br> <br> Simple test for this hypothesis: if tomorrow, Visa changed the<br> technology from whatever network protocols they have today to<br> something totally different, it would still be Visa. Also, if they<br> changed where you get the cards from, or whether or not it is even<br> card (e.g. embedded in a cell phone, for example), it would still be<br> Visa.<br> <br> But if they changed the promise and I won't get the shoes, regardless<br> of product or technology, it would not be Visa.<br> <br> I believe there is a great parallel to OpenID.<br> <br> I believe OpenID should be that promise. Displayed at the front door<br> of a website (like the Visa logo at the door of the shoe store) and<br> communicating to the customer "if X then Y".<br> <br> Today OpenID's customer promise means: if you bring a valid<br> identifier, you can log on without a password.<br> It might, in some circumstances, mean today (and perhaps more so in<br> the future): if you filled out the profile at your OP, you don't have<br> to fill out forms here.<br> In the future, it might also mean "all my data is mine, it moves<br> around as I like, and there is a legal framework around it that I can<br> legally enforce."<br> <br> This promise must exist as a brand. It must be multi-vendor/party. It<br> will turn out to be >>50% overlap with the term OpenID as it is used<br> today. So in my view, it should be OpenID.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Johannes Ernst<br> NetMesh Inc.<br> <br> <br> </span></font></blockquote> </div> </blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>