AOL/AIM users now have an OpenID!
Below is the post from John Panzer about AOL and OpenID. Great to see AOL leap ahead of Yahoo and Google on supporting user-centric identity!
AOL and OpenID: Where we are
It’s not really a secret that AOL has been experimenting with OpenID. As I’ve said, I think that user-centric, interoperable identity is hugely important to enable the social experiences we’re trying to provide. This is a work in progress, but things are coming along thanks to our authentication team’s diligent effort. Here’s where we are today
- Every AOL/AIM user now has at least one OpenID URI, http://openid.aol.com/<sn>.
- This experimental OpenID 1.1 Provider service is available now and we are conducting compatibility tests.
- We’re working with OpenID relying parties to resolve compatibility issues.
- Our blogging platform has enabled basic OpenID 1.1 in beta, so every beta blog URI is also a basic OpenID identifier. (No Yadis yet.)
- We don’t yet accept OpenID identities within our products as a relying party, but we’re actively working on it. That roll-out is likely to be gradual.
- We are tracking the OpenID 2.0 standardization effort and plan to support it after it becomes final.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm very interested about the idea of Identity 2.0 and am a big fan of the concept, but most of the bloggings I have read on your site incorporate large companies such as AOL and Microsoft.
While these companies simply seem to be early adopters of the technology/concept at the moment, are you not afraid these companies are currently only involved in the development of Identity 2.0 to increase their competitive advantage by being early adopters? I'm not asking this from a technology point of view, but from a commercial point of view. The reasoning behind this is that in my opnion companies like AOL and Microsoft seem to only be interested in this technology to increase their own competitive advantage, instead of helping to increase the speed of development of Identity 2.0 implementations/solutions.
Many people at Microsoft want to make Identity 2.0 happen. The announcement from them was a strong signal to the market that OpenID is an important technology. Similarly, several firms in the OpenID market acknowledged that InfoCards is an important technology.
AOL of course is adopting OpenID in hopes it will provide a competitive advantage. I don't see anything wrong with that, it is what a capitalistic society is about. AOL is not wanting to subvert OpenID (as far as I know) and adopting OpenID is also a *good* thing for OpenID.
I blog about AOL and Microsoft since those are the news worthy participants. Many, many other sites are adopting OpenID. You do have a good point about how to message all these other sites adopting OpenID ...
Dick,
I've just become aware of your work and the work of Skip - terrific stuff. I manage web and database services for a small nonprofit agency in Seattle (www.npowerseattle.org) – and am very much interested in the work of Skip. Most of my work currently is different – we’re trying to help nonprofits solve the ID problem from another angle – how do we help nonprofits gain an accurate (and appropriate!) 360 degree view of their constituents? Our market is unique in that many nonprofit agencies’ customers are also their donors, board members, volunteers and so on – and while Salesforce.com and their free offering to nonprofits help – there is still a lot of data in silos!
In any case keep up the good work – and if any of your team are in Seattle (or are willing to meet in Vancouver – I’m there often) – I’d be delighted!
I'd be interested in learning more about what you would like to know about your constituents. Drop me a note when you are next coming to Vancouver. You can reach me at dick at sxip dot com.