[Marketing] [OpenID] Website Being Updated Today

Wed Oct 10 14:21:35 UTC 2007

I quite like Snorri's suggestion.

I think that having a well run (heavily automated ;)) directory service would work in OpenID.net's and OpenID's favour. The problem I have with openiddirectory.com is that it seems to do a whole lot more than simply documenting and categorising providers. The front page isn't very inspiring to someone looking for a provider - it seems to do a lot of ranking and voting and there's not many ques on the front page what the site does exactly - providers are just one category out of 12 and have no sorting criteria.

An independent service would be preferable - same reasons David gave. I think it would work almost as well as a delegated site though - OpenID.net kickstarts and delegates control to some willing cohorts. I'm thinking here of an open source style mode. You still retain ultimate control, but it's all pushed down to the volunteers/stakeholders so your involvement is kept as minimal as you wish - leave it to the underlings!

Probably the biggest key would be making an OpenID.net directory automated as much as possible. Manual vetting works for submissions with limited numbers, but it's all the rechecking for dead sites, closed providers, or offline ones that would eat up far too much time. Other than that it's largely a matter of storing the data, accepting new listings, and displaying the data by category (nation/other). Very much narrower in focus than opendirectory.com but without the voting element that puts a national provider 5 pages deep ;).

P.S. I do so prefer the new website!

Paddy

Pádraic Brady

http://blog.astrumfutura.com
http://www.patternsforphp.com
OpenID Europe Foundation

----- Original Message ----
From: Snorri <snorri at snorri.eu>
To: OpenID marketing <marketing at openid.net>; Scott Kveton <scott at kveton.com>
Cc: david at sixapart.com
Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 11:17:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Marketing] [OpenID] Website Being Updated Today

Copy of my email of August! :-)

- Just one page for the Identity Providers (others services + inames =
another page)
- There should not be of censure, everyone (even a small OP) must be able to
be here! It's Open!
==> But the serious submition is done at the beginning: For add a new OP =
is necessary to enter a submit form with some criteria (name, mission,
founder, countries, IP, languages, contacts...+ Necessary to read and accept
the IPR/PROVIDER Policy) = and after we test/ping this OP = if it's works/ok
= is immediately online!
- A table classified by country/language ==> Easy for the end user = I'm
French = I want an French OP! ;)
- icons list for the services propose by this OP : Free, Strong
authentication, OpenID2.0, i-names...
- No Wiki page = Same that the new design!

+ important: Specify at the foot of the page a legal sentence: "OpenID.net
give a list of OP but is not responsible for the services suggested. You are
free to choose.

If you agree this idea = I can prepare a document for this important
updating (1 week)

Greetings

-Snorri

-----Message d'origine-----
De : marketing-bounces at openid.net [mailto:marketing-bounces at openid.net] De
la part de Dick Hardt
Envoyé : mardi 9 octobre 2007 20:38
À : Scott Kveton
Cc : OpenID marketing; david at sixapart.com
Objet : Re: [Marketing] [OpenID] Website Being Updated Today

I appreciate the problem with the current listing. It is not very  
useful to a user.

I agree that Drummond's proposal places a bar on being listed on the  
page, but who decides that bar? If the bar is relatively low (which I  
would say is what Drummond proposes) -- then the list of OPs will  
likely not get much shorter -- so we have not really solved the problem.

Additionally, one could easily argue that unless a site supports some  
strong authentication such as PAPE, that we are sending people to a  
potentially risky OP. Now we are starting to take on liability for  
what is a good or a bad OP.

Perhaps instead of sending people to a site that they potentially  
need to build a new trust relationship with, that we tell users to  
ask the sites they trust to be an OP for them. This gets users to  
start asking sites to be OPs, bringing more OPs online, and as more  
sites support OpenID, it makes sense for them to market to their  
users that they are an OP and so on and so on ...

If openid.net directs people to a site, then it becomes pretty  
political because there is a small number listed, we risk liability  
of saying who to use or it is useless because so many are listed.

The number of OPs will most likely get much larger, and this problem  
will get worse.

-- Dick

On 9-Oct-07, at 11:21 AM, Scott Kveton wrote:

>> I think it is a very slippery slope for the website and/or board to
>> recommend OpenID providers without being inclusive of ALL providers.
>
> I would agree with this if we were talking about just about anything
> other than a users digital identity.  Let me explain.
>
> There have been countless blog posts and notes to the general list
> saying "if I am a user, where do I get an OpenID?"  People invariably
> end up at openid.net and then are completely stumped.  The process is
> painful at best (well, before yesterday it was).
>
> Now, if you look at the listing on the wiki:
>
> http://wiki.openid.net/Public_OpenID_providers
>
> we see 40+ sites that provide OpenID's ... now this is fair to every
> single provider out there but is completely worthless for the end
> user.  They want to click a button and end up at a provider.  Now, if
> they are coming to openid.net for a digital identity and we send them
> off to a evil/bogus/soon-to-be-out-of-business provider, how good is
> that for the user and/or OpenID as a whole?
>
> To that end, I actually like Drummond's proposal however, I don't want
> to committee this to death so that we create something that makes
> everyone happy but creates a completely confusing tool for end-users.
> I firmly believe that we need to create a tool that is easy for users
> or, no matter how inclusive it is, it will fail.
>
> - Scott
>
>

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