Carsten Poetter (where's my umlaut key?) over at Not So Relevant brings up the issue of having too many OpenID accounts. He has eight. I think I have four. ClaimID, MyOpenID, TypePad, Technorati... I probably have more.
More and more services are accepting OpenID logins. That's a good thing. If not great thing, but more and more services are also becoming their own OpenID Identity Servers. I suppose that it's good to spread the love, but does that begin to defeat the purpose of an identity system? Is it more about identity authentication than user ID management? The benefits are clear when it comes to micro tasks that would be best if there was authentication, such as commenting on blogs, or joining a message board, just enter in the URI and go! But the benefit fades for me when considering using OpenID for larger sites and more in depth tasks. For some reason I don't feel as connected to the site if I only use my OpenID URI to join.
At Wink, we are considering the implementation of an identity server. This way people can use Wink to manage their online identity plus use a Wink URI to login to other services that accept OpenID. It makes sense for us on a marketing level as it gets our domain name more exposure, plus it ties us with the burgeoning identity management community. As a people search engine, there's certain validity in our offering the server. But... is it necessary? We can just as easily become a MyOpenID affiliate and let that be that. We would get authenticated users who can log in and use Wink with little effort on their part (or ours). Why do we need to go through the hassle of having to manage other people's OpenIDs? If anything there could be a considerable customer service problem as people will think that we are the ultimate provider of this service. As this grows, this can become a problem.
I think it makes sense to accept OpenID logins. Everyone should be doing that, but I don't see the necessity of having there be just as many servers. Clearly Yahoo!. Google, Amazon, and other trusted large services would be smart to implement OpenID both logins and identity servers. They have a huge customer base and are trusted identity managers. They could then easily create their own syndicated services outside of their brand such as Yahoo! Shopping's Trovetopia, or Google's SearchMash using OpenID authentication but without losing the site's intended brand independence.
To me the promise of OpenID is about identity management. If I can participate in a community using my own authenticated URI without having to complete a unique user profile to communicate who I am or where I am, I win. If I can use my OpenID to control who sees what and where, then I win. If OpenID can provide this in a clear and understandable manner for my Dad, then everyone wins. That's the issue. The benefit of the feature is no where near clear enough for the average person to take the time to figure it out and actually be willing to use it. Having Yahoo! support OpenID would go a long way to helping the cause. Put an OpenID button in the Yahoo! tool bar to automatically fill in my authenticated URI without me having to type it or remember it... or better yet some kind of universal authenticated cookie... then my life would be complete.
Please let me know if you think I've got it all wrong. I have a headache.
