[Marketing] Revamping the Website

[Simon Willison]

I have two desires for a new OpenID homepage:

1. A prominent "get an OpenID here" button - the most prominent link
on the whole page
2. (a lot) less text

I know it's politically risky to link directly to OpenID providers,
but we have to figure out a way to do it. If a user visits openid.net
there's a good chance they already have a vague idea what it is and
want to get one for themself. We don't need to throw a full
explanation at them (though of course we should link through to one);
we just need to give them the shortest possible path to getting
started with OpenID itself.

Both the existing site and the new one at http://openid2.info/ have
far too much text. I am not a copywriter (it would be great to get a
professional copywriter on board for this), but I'm thinking something
like this:

"""
OpenID lets you use one account to sign in to many different sites

Get an OpenID (BIG LINK/BUTTON)
Where can I use one?

Why should my site support OpenID?
OpenID for developers
Frequently asked questions
"""

Much more text / navigation than that and people will get confused and
go away. The 37signals OpenID explanation page is a good example of a
user-friendly explanation:

http://www.37signals.com/openid/

There's a ton of other useful stuff that can go on the site, but the
above seems to me like it should cover the basics. I'd love to get an
"official" OpenID screencast up there (preferably 3 minutes or less,
since that's about the most time people can spend watching a video
without feeling guilty about skipping work) but the less stuff on the
homepage the better.

Cheers,

Simon