OpenID: The Web's Most Successful Failure
Scott Gilbertson,
WebMonkey,
Feb 01, 2011
Scott Gilbertson makes the case that OpenID was not, in fact, a failure. H epoints to the fact that some 50,000 websites (including this one) support OpenID. He notes that it solved the original problem it was intended to solve, but then bogged down as the vision expanded. But the main issue with OpenID, he suggests, is that publishers never warmed to the idea because it meant users could enter, leave a comment, and exit, all anonymously. And he points out that things like Facebook Connect do the same thing and do it better, mostly, he suggests, because it shares user details using OAuth. A proposal to enable OpenID with OAuth has been entertained, but has not gained traction. Personally, I think one of the major stumbling blocks for OpenID is that it did not belong to some company. So there was no major push for it. Don't get me wrong - I think this was a strength of OpenID. But with the internet as it is now, with a few major players eagerly dividing the spoils, if it's unowned they're uninterested.
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