The Inquisitr » openid http://www.inquisitr.com The Better Mix Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:17:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 The Race To Social Network 2.0 http://www.inquisitr.com/735/the-race-to-social-network-20/ http://www.inquisitr.com/735/the-race-to-social-network-20/#comments Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:33:05 +0000 Duncan Riley http://www.inquisitr.com/?p=735 October 2009: Matthew logs onto his social aggregation service. In front of him appears everything his friends have been doing across every different social networking service. He decides that he needs to write a few blog posts, upload some photos, and comment on a few threads. He clicks on the menu in his aggregation service and off he goes, uploading photos to MySpace, Flickr, Facebook, Picasa Web Albums, .Mac and Bebo all from the one screen. Then there’s that party he wants to invite people to: he sets up an event and adds the friends he wants to invite. Details of the party and invites are posted on evite, Socializr and Facebook, with RSVPs from all being tracked by the aggregator.

Does this sound like any service available today? It doesn’t, and yet this is the social network of tomorrow, social network 2.0.

There’s been a lot of talk around FriendFeed being the next Google, and yet it’s not quite there yet. FriendFeed aggregates the data in, but so far the only place you can post out of FriendFeed is Twitter. FriendFeed is however continually evolving and will change in time. The guys running FriendFeed are smart (and ex-Googlers as well) so they will already know that social network 2.0 is the end game. The bigger question though is can they get there in time?

Google is still the 1000 pound gorilla

The only company that has come close to meeting the description above is Google with the yet unlaunched Socialstream. The video below shows how one central network can be used as the hub for external services, perhaps not perfectly, but the content generation outwards is there. Google’s Friend Connect and Open Social is all about laying a common data foundation for a service like Socialstream. Google knows it can’t win social networks 1.0, but it’s well placed to become the two-way social aggregation tool of the future.

Competition

We know that the two main players in the race to social network 2.0 are Google and FriendFeed, but as yet we don’t know who else is aiming to deliver in this space. I’d suggest that Facebook and MySpace in particular are not going to sit back and allow Google to create an two way aggregation hub without themselves being in the race. We’re seeing the start of the cold war between Google and Facebook now, with Facebook blocking access to Google’s Friend Connect service. Facebook claims the reason is privacy but ultimately what Friend Connect represents is the dawn of the aggregation services, the ability to pull and push information to and from multiple social networks. MySpace has thrown its weight behind Open Social, but is absent from Friend Connect. Could MySpace see Friend Connect as the start of the broader threat from Google?

My guess is that Facebook is trying to group as many startups around a compatible layer, perhaps via their platform, so that in the future they’ll start aggregation services as well (the basics are already there through mini-feeds). MySpace, with the backing of News/ FIM will be heading in the same direction, both via in part supporting the standards set by Google, but holding back at the end so they can start cutting direct deals as well.

Conclusion

The opening scenario isn’t that far fetched and it’s definitely the direction we are heading in. The walled gardens of 1.0 are slowing coming down, with movements such as OpenID and DataPortability, and even Google’s Open Social establishing cross platform data compatibility. Ultimately the aggregation model presented today by FriendFeed will expand into ubiquitous two way communication across multiple platforms. Google became the starting point for search, who will become the starting point for social networking tomorrow??

Related posts:

  1. Google Stealthily Building a Social Network?
  2. Social Networking Cold War: FB To Open Source Platform
  3. Facebook launches Facebook Connect Plugin Directory

]]> http://js-kit.com/rss/www.inquisitr.com/p=735 4 bliss OpenID At The Tipping Point: What You Need To Know http://www.inquisitr.com/413/openid-at-the-tipping-point-what-you-need-to-know/ http://www.inquisitr.com/413/openid-at-the-tipping-point-what-you-need-to-know/#comments Sun, 18 May 2008 06:41:17 +0000 Duncan Riley http://www.inquisitr.com/?p=413 If you haven’t heard about OpenID yet, chances are you soon will. OpenID is a independent system that allows you to log into different sites using the same ID, negating the need to set up separate accounts on each site.

Until recently there’s been a lot of noise around OpenID, but the number of sites supporting it has meant that OpenID has not until now reached a tipping point. Things started to change last year with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others announcing their intention to support OpenID. I’d signed up for an OpenID years ago but I had never used it, until recently I went to sign up for a site and it only offered OpenID. Perhaps until now I’ve been blind to OpenID support, but ever since I keep finding sites that either offer OpenID as an alternative to setting up an account, or only offer OpenID as a sign in option. After years of promise, finally OpenID is gaining widespread support. Here’s what you need to know.

What is OpenID?

From Wikipedia:

OpenID is a shared identity service, which allows Internet users to log on to many different web sites using a single digital identity, eliminating the need for a different user name and password for each site. OpenID is a decentralized, free and open standard that lets users control the amount of personal information they provide.

The short version is that OpenID is one login for many sites.

How do you get an OpenID?

To obtain an OpenID you need to register your details with an OpenID provider. Until recently that meant signing up with a dedicated OpenID provider like MyOpenID, but mainstream companies such as Yahoo and AOL now offer OpenID logins for free to registered members. Nearly everyone has a Yahoo ID (for many, only because Flickr forced them on us) so you can sign up for a Yahoo OpenID here.

The only downside (as I see it) with OpenID’s is the length they force on the user, for example a MyOpenID username is http://yourname.myopenid.com. Sure, it’s not a major inconvenience, but compared to typing in simply yourname it may be a barrier for some people. Yahoo OpenID’s allow you to simply type in yahoo.com as the username then you are taken to a Yahoo page to confirm that you want to log in using your Yahoo OpenID, a very nice touch given it knows who you are presuming you’re curently logged in to a Yahoo account (for example if you use Flickr).

There’s a full list of OpenID providers on the OpenID wiki here.

Where you can use your OpenID

There’s no definitive list of sites that use OpenID, but here’s some of the major sites that support the service (via RWW)

There are also directories of sites that support OpenID at MyOpenID here and at the OpenID Directory. When in doubt, look for the OpenID symbol at the log in page you’re visiting.

Conclusion

For years OpenID (not unlike DataPortability now) has been the play thing of geeks without any mainstream acceptance, but support from the likes of Yahoo, Google, AOL and Microsoft means that after years of promise, OpenID is at the tipping point. Ultimately the idea behind OpenID: one central login for all sites is a positive for consumers at a time many, many more sites are competing for our attention. If you haven’t started using OpenID logins, give it a shot.

Related posts:

  1. Obama’s Change includes support for Open ID
  2. Google Finally Overtakes Yahoo By Traffic
  3. 100 Regator Invites for Inquisitr Readers

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