In one of the greatest moves since the Zimbra acquisition, Yahoo announced today that it will provide support for OpenID 2.0 at the end of this month. "Yahoo! (...) announced its support for the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework for all 248 million active registered Yahoo! users worldwide. OpenID, an open framework based on proven Internet technologies, enables users to consolidate their Internet identity, eliminating the need to create separate IDs and logins at all of the various websites, blogs, and profile pages they may visit in the course of their online session. In addition to the many leading Yahoo! services users already enjoy, anyone with a Yahoo! ID will be able to use the same ID for easy access to any sites that support OpenID 2.0. Yahoo!'s initial OpenID service, which will be available in public beta on January 30, enables a seamless and transparent web experience by allowing users to use their custom OpenID identifier on me.yahoo.com or to simply type in www.yahoo.com or www.flickr.com on any site that supports OpenID 2.0."
From January 30, any Yahoo ID will also become an OpenID that could be used to authenticate on any site that accepts OpenIDs (for example, to post comments on Blogger). Even if many important companies backed this authentication system, very few started to support it and this reduced its usefulness. Yahoo mentions that it will triple the number of OpenIDs to 368 million, although I don't think there's a way to calculate the total number of OpenIDs.
Hopefully this is just a start and many other companies, including Google, will become OpenID providers and will accept OpenIDs.
Related:
Blogger implements OpenID
Use your own domain as an OpenID
Would there be conflict if all the Yahoo IDs became OpenIDs, for example if someone has mustafa as his Yahoo ID and someone else has also mustafa on other service which supports OpenID?
ReplyDeleteNo, because OpenIDs are actually URLs and they're tied to a domain. For example, your Yahoo OpenID won't be mustafa, but me.yahoo.com/mustafa (or something like that).
ReplyDeleteWonderful! Perhaps this will allow encourage a wider demographic to participate in the blogosphere!
ReplyDelete~TableBread
http://tablebread.blogspot.com
Technically, Google is already supporting OpenID to some degree. After all, you can use your OpenID with Blogger. In any case, it would be nice if they started accepting it more, then converted their Google Accounts to OpenIDs as well.
ReplyDeleteTake note that they're an OpenID provider, but they won't yet allow users of other OpenID providers to log in to their services.
ReplyDeleteSo they're only half way there.
testing open id from http://phpmyid.com/
ReplyDeleteGoogle has kinda of OpenID.. it's what Google accounts is for.
ReplyDeleteI can bet my last dime, Google will never join the OpenID network, but will try to promote its own Google accounts authentification stuff...
Anyway google was using the same id for all its google applications to login......so its like openId thing only ...Now next thing is that, they have to extend it to more websites outside google .
ReplyDelete@Mork the Delayer:
ReplyDeleteIf I understood correctly, you'll be able to login at me.yahoo.com with an OpenID.
@Anonymous:
Google has an authentication API, but it's not open and few sites will adopt it.
@Aditya:
OpenID = a decentralized single sign-on system. Google's system is centralized.
Awesome move by Yahoo!
ReplyDeleteopenid ofcourse rocks :) but I doubt I will use my yahoo account as my openid, I barely use my yahoo account as is...
ReplyDeleteforgot to link to the newer post : http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogger-becomes-openid-provider.html as that one shows blogger offers openid (albeit 1.1 instead of 2.0 like yahoo does) so Goog is providing openid, hopefully they will extend it further than just blogger subdomains.
ReplyDeleteI dont mind the whole OpenID movement, but i just think it would be much easier to track uses between websites and find more information that will be linked directly to you. I actually think sometimes anonymity is good at times...
ReplyDeleteGreat idea, I would think the open id would be your login name with the @yahoo.com
ReplyDeleteI wish Google would have done that first.
ReplyDelete