wayne on September 23, 2008
OpenID provides the ability to create a single username and password, yet use the same credentials at many different sites. Anyone that has been surfing the Internet for any duration of time has surely come upon the issue of remembering a login name and password for many sites. How do you handle that? Enter OpenID, your solution to not having to remember so many credentials, maybe. Read on to learn more.
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OpenID
OpenID is an open-source solution (which means any site is free to implement it). As Brad Fitzpatrick (the father of OpenID) said,
Nobody should own this. Nobody’s planning on making any money from this. The goal is to release every part of this under the most liberal licenses possible, so there’s no money or licensing or registering required to play. It benefits the community as a whole if something like this exists, and we’re all a part of the community.
It looks and smells like the right approach. With every web site you visit requiring a login and password from you, how do you remember each and every one? You could use the same password, use a pattern that includes something about the site you are on to help you remember your username and password. There are many ways people remember their user name and password from site to site. To each their own, right? OpenID allows you to use your credentials from OpenID for authenticating yourself with other sites. These 'other sites' must allow the use of the OpenID of course.
How Do I Use It?
Each and every Blogger.com user already has an OpenID account and can use it. You created it by creating a Blogger.com blog. Perhaps you didn't realize that.
When I visit a blog that offers the OpenID mechanism like most of our Blogger.com users do, I simply need to select the OpenID item when commenting, and input http://www.viewsonlife.net. That's it! OpenID has associated my Blogger.com URL with who I am, so when I comment and use this option, the result will look like this:
Of course, the hyperlink leads back to my blog on Blogger. Each time I leave a comment, I simply drop my URL into the 'Who are you' part and I'm done.
The one problem I have with using OpenID is that I don't seem to get any control over the text of the link. What if I wanted to use the words 'Wayne John' in the link, instead of what I get above? I can't, and that my friends is pretty limiting in my opinion.
Do You Use It?
I don't support OpenID on my blog yet, perhaps someday I will. I'd be more curious to find out what number of users are currently using this technology today. I don't see many people commenting and using OpenID as a way of identifying themselves to the blog they are commenting on. I can count on one hand the number of comments I have seen left by those using OpenID as a way of authenticating themselves.
So I ask you, do you use it? Is it something you might begin to use in the future?
To learn more about OpenID, you can visit their web site.
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