We all know the difficulties involved in creating & maintaining separate online identities for each & every Internet service that we may need to access. However, many of us may not be aware of the evolving technologies which aim to provide a solution for this problem. There has been a silent revolution in the online world from quite some time to bring in a universal standard for accessing the Internet services. Here is a sneak peak at one such protocol called OpenID which is redefining the online digital Identity.
What is OpenID ?
OpenId is a non proprietary technology for simplifying the online presence of an individual by providing a single digital identity across the Internet. It eliminates the need for having multiple user names across different Internet services. One can have multiple OpenID’s, one each for different purposes like office or personal just like the email ids. But unlike email ids, the sites your going to access wont be able to spam you without your permissions.
Prominent OpenId providers
If you are using services like Blogger, AOL or WordPress.com, you will already be having an OpenID. For example, in case of Blogger, you can use your blog URL (blogname.blogspot.com) itself as your OpenID. If you are still not using any such OpenID enabled services or if you like to create a separate OpenID, then you can go for any of the well known OpenID providers which you can trust. MyOpenID, MyId.net, claimID, myVidoop & VeriSign’s PIP are some of the popular OpenID providers which are also recommended by the OpenID foundation. You can also use your existing website or blog URL as your OpenID with little extra one time effort. I will explain more on this in the coming weeks.
Demanding for OpenID support
If any of your favorite sites doesn’t yet have support for OpenID, you can demand them to enable OpenID service. Probably, the best way to make such requests is through using a site called demand.openid.net. This site lets you to submit OpenID requests for any number of sites. Also, you can view the number of OpenID requests submitted by others users for those particular sites. And also, there is a OpenID directory which serves as a useful repository for finding thousands of OpenID enabled sites.
Adoption
OpenID is still in the initial stages of adoption. It is estimated that, currently there are around 500 million OpenID enabled URI’s & nearly thirty one thousand sites with support for OpenID. This may not to be a huge number when you consider the size of the Internet. But, with large organizations such as Microsoft, Google & Yahoo joining the OpenID movement, it is expected to become more & more popular in the near future. Considering current statistics & the growth of OpenID (200%) in the year 2008, we can safely assume that, the days when the whole online world will use a single sign on are not really very far. If you are not yet having an OpenID, probably it’s time to get one & support the rising OpenID movement.
