Inside Facebook

The message of OpenID has generally been “make it easier for consumers to log into multiple sites without a new password”. Well, after a few years, it’s pretty clear that that is not enough to get people to adopt it.

The primary competitor to OpenID is not Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, or any of these new systems. It’s old-fashioned email. When a site gets your email address, they get both an identifier and a way to contact you. When they get an OpenID, all they get is an identifier. As long as an OpenID is less valuable than an email address, it will not be adopted widely. So we need to make it more valuable to websites.

There are elements of the “open stack” that can layer on top of OpenID and provide not only a way to contact the user, but also get their profile info, friend data, and distribution among their friends. These are all available via Facebook Connect, and they offer real value. For instance, with Connect, websites are impressed by how much data they get from their users, and how much more content users contribute. For example, Govit reported that more than half of their new users use Connect, and they all have names and profile pictures, and they can publish their stories back into their Facebook Newsfeed.

Unfortunately, OpenID providers aren’t there yet with providing all that value. There are extensions to OpenID that help with this: simple registration, attribute exchange, OAuth, portable contacts, …. Sorry, did I lose you? These different pieces are really confusing and inconsistently applied. As long as that is true, it will be really difficult for relying parties to well, rely on them being there. Yahoo is the only major OpenID provider that offers simple reg (I mean of the big few) and even they haven’t released it publicly (although soon will). I hope during 2009 that the breadth of providers offering the full “open stack” will be dramatically expanded, such that relying parties can come to expect a consistent experience from the average OpenID provider. It should be as consistent as it is with Facebook Connect.

Q. What would you do as a board member?

My understanding is that the board is actually somewhat disjoint from the mechanics of actually moving the technology forward. The board members meet once or twice a quarter, plan and manage finances, and set the strategic direction and overall goals of the OpenID brand and organization. I think I can help particularly in representing the needs of big companies (Facebook specifically), and the top 100 websites, and making sure that their voice is heard within the OpenID board meetings. I’m also really interested in learning about the goings-on in the technology, and talking with representatives from other stakeholders in OpenID.

Regardless of whether I make the board, I plan to work within the community … help with the OAuth extension, continue to evangelize OpenID and other elements of the open stack within Facebook. I’ve done a significant amount of work towards that end already and plan to continue.