<div>[Oops, I hit the send button prematurely]</div><div><br></div><div><meta charset="utf-8"><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">It's great that Facebook once again is helping to prove the model that internet identities should be portable across sites. In the past, the main criticisms against OpenID were </div>
<div><ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">Users wouldn't be able to understand the concept of logging into a website with an account from a different website - the UX would be too confusing</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">Website owners don't want to outsource authentication to 3rd parties. </span></li><li><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Users don't want to reuse an existing account on other websites</span></font></li>
</ol></div></div><div>The popular social networks are doing a great job disproving these myths, and proving that there's plenty of value in portable internet identities. </div><div><br></div><div>The biggest shortcoming with OpenID is that it only addresses the login issue. Potential OpenID Relying Parties have often asked me, "OK, the user can login with an OpenID. Now what?" In contrast, the popular social network platforms are about bringing the social network's user experience, data, and services to the website. Logging in is just a side effect of using an existing web identity.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Regarding the Facebook Comments plugin - websites that allow users to post comments generally don't have a huge problem with login/registration friction - rather by far the the biggest problem is idiotic/hateful posts, followed by spam. Facebook's Real Identity enforces real life social controls to strongly discourage anti-social and destructive posts, and FB's strong anti-spam defenses make the Facebook Comments plugin an excellent turnkey solution for many publishers.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I recommend reading Julie Zhou's (Facebook's UX design manager) very insightful guest post in the NY Times for more details.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/opinion/30zhuo.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/opinion/30zhuo.html</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>That being said, while Facebook is helping to prove the model that web identities should be portable, I think there's plenty of room for more than just one universal identity. I do think that disposable aka "directed" identities are useless, since an disposable/one-off identity with no existing reputation has no advantages over an old fashioned local account. In order to match (or perhaps exceed) the value of a Real Identity, portable web identities will need some sort of reputation that websites can use to determine the value of a new user, as well as a way to hold users accountable for their behavior. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Allen</div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Allen Tom <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:allentomdude@gmail.com">allentomdude@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">[+openid-general]<div><br></div><div>It's great that Facebook once again is helping to prove the model that internet identities should be portable across sites. In the past, the main criticisms against OpenID were</div>
<div> users wouldn't be able to understand the concept of logging into a website with an account from a different website, and that website owners would not want to outsource authentication to 3rd parties. </div><div>
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<br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 11:47 AM, Mike Jones <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Michael.Jones@microsoft.com" target="_blank">Michael.Jones@microsoft.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/singel-facebook-empire/" target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/singel-facebook-empire/</a></p>
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