December 2006

Simon Willison has made a great screencast that does a great job explaining the how and why of OpenID. There is also a Google video of this as well (although the quality is much poorer).

A great article on why Nick Manley thinks Google will be supporting OpenID in the near future.

Some fantastic articles have come out in the last couple of weeks talking about OpenID. The momentum is growing and I’m going to go out on a limb and say it; we’re at a tipping point.

the mashpit concept explained

Originally uploaded by Chris Radcliff.

A couple of weeks ago I announced a Mash Pit event for OpenID to be hosted here in Portland, OR. Its a chance for folks to come and do some hacking on OpenID and learn what it would take to implement it on their own sites. We’ll have all hands on deck here from JanRain with help for folks in Ruby, Python, PHP and Perl. I’m really excited because we’ve got 36 people watching or planning to attend this event! I can’t wait.

I’m even more excited because other people are picking up and running with the idea. On the same night, we’ll have OpenID Mash Pit’s going in Austin, TX, Boston, MA and Paris, France as well as one in Vancouver, BC. The one in Vancouver we’ll be doing a live webcast between JanRain and the Sxip offices. It’ll be like being in Canada and Portland at the same time … :-)

Don’t be afraid to start your own event. If you need help from me or any of the other folks in the OpenID community in organizing or finding your identity brethren don’t hesitate to ask. Copy, engage, repeat … :-)

Hope to see you there!

Saw Simon mention a three-step process for getting an OpenID show up on reddit and of course I have to link to it because they are using MyOpenID as the example … :-)

This is also a great time to mention the affiliate program that we launched a few weeks ago. If you run your own site but don’t want to host an OpenID server, you can sign up as an affiliate and redirect users to MyOpenID.com to get their own OpenID. The user is presented with a logo from your site as well as a description of why they were directed there. You can see an example from my blog here.

Some of the better known affiliates are Ma.gnolia.com, a great social-bookmarking site and Zooomr, a really amazing photo-sharing site. If you don’t want to run an OpenID server, we’re more than happy to do it for you. And you can even use your own domain if you want to.

Finally, if you want to run your own OpenID server you can do that as well. phpMyID is a great standalone PHP OpenID identity provider that was just released a week or so ago. You can then manage your own server and deliver identities yourself.

Simon Willison has done an excellent post on how to OpenID enable your blog or site. Really well thought out and quite thorough. Thanks Simon!

Update: Fixed this to actually be about Simon Willison and not Simon Wilson. Doh!

STODID is the Story of Digital ID and is being led by Aldo Castañeda. You can get a chance to listen to me ramble on about OpenID in the latest episode. Seriously though, I do try to cover some of the issues we’re seeing as a community and trends in adoption.

Thanks Aldo for convening this and doing such a great job as moderator!

Click here to just start listening right away.

John Panzer wrote a great piece about how and why AOL should support OpenID.

I got to meet John at IIW2006b and he lived up to his reputation; honest, sharp and well-spoken. Yes, OpenID isn’t perfect yet, but its got a lot of the right components to help get it closer to what is needed. To see John making a post like the above is a good sign that AOL is starting to think about this. Hopefully folks like John can make it happen.

The big players have much more to consider than the technology when it comes to adopting OpenID. They have to consider the business aspects as well. What’s the business case for OpenID-enabling their sites? Also, a lot of the bigger sites have much of their valuation tied to “owning” large user bases. So why/how could it make sense for one of the big players to adopt OpenID?

1. Adopting a standard is always a good thing: OpenID isn’t recognized as a “real” standard yet but its quickly becoming the de-facto standard due to the wide-adoption we’re seeing as well as the convergence that has happened in the last couple of months. Having XRI/i-name support, having Sxip join the OpenID community, etc. We’re really seeing this thing take off and its never been a question of technology. Its always been momentum and timing. We have lots of momentum now and the timing couldn’t be better.
2. Data is the new software: People may laugh at me on this, but its not the software. Software is effectively free now. Content management systems, wikis, blogs and even operating systems are commodities now. Its what you do with the software that is interesting. Its the sets of data that you can create and correlate together that are really, really interesting. Just look at Google. They arguably use more open source (aka free software) than anybody around. Its how they hook that software together and correlate the data from their users that’s the interesting stuff. Now, when you have lots of data, identifying who did what becomes the key. We haven’t had a thin layer of identity to do this in the past. OpenID gives us that layer of identity and more importantly a way for users and sites to correlate and better represent data that the users are creating.
3. Data + Identity == Good Stuff: As per my last item, data coupled to identity is really interesting. What’s even more interesting than that are the things you can do with identity and data coupled together. Now that I am this one identity for all of the places that I’m going on the Internet, I can really start to provide some services for that OpenID that I couldn’t before. Attributes, reputation, trust and social networking are some of the interesting areas to look at when it comes to OpenID in 2007
4. Users can try on lots of different services much easier: Since the barrier to using different services is much lower (no login screen) users can try on lots of different services very quickly. Not only that, users can engage so much more quickly. No more trying to remember your login and password. Show up. Enter your OpenID. Engage.
5. Easier to integrate acquisitions: This isn’t that big of a deal but as the larger properties buy up sites that are OpenID-enabled they automagically can use all of their other properties. In addition, you don’t have the problems with user bases that feel they are losing their identity because of integration with one of the big players. They can keep their same identity that they created on the site even if its acquired.

That’s all I’ve got for a chilly Sunday morning in December. Glad you’re looking at OpenID John and let us know if there is anything we can do to help.

Chris Messina is literally a factory of ideas. He’s one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met. He also possesses the only reality distortion field I’ve ever seen that actually stays with you when he’s not around. Hats off to you Chris; the selfless viral reality distortion field guy that’s doing amazing things every single day. Now put him together with his partner-in-crime, the original Pinko marketeer, Tara Hunt you’ve got a recipe for some amazing things. (full-disclosure: I’m an adviser to their company Citizen Agency).

Originally uploaded by spinnerin.

One of my favorite of their creations is the concept of co-working. The idea is simple:

Coworking is cafe-like community/collaboration space for developers, writers and independents.

Or, it’s like this: start with a shared office and add cafe culture. Which is the opposite of most modern cafes.

I had a chance to visit the Citizen Space a couple of weeks ago and I was amazed. Its an open space with desks, white boards and a conference room. Its shared by multiple companies. The cross-pollination possibilities are endless. In an age when we spend more and more time on-line, its amazing what having some face time does to the creative process. While there, I attended the Citizen Summit which was joined by 25 really, really sharp people with amazing ideas and strong convictions.

A couple of weeks ago at the Portland BarCamp planning meeting there was quite a bit of discussion about co-working in Portland. Dawn and Raven are leading the charge and I’d really love to see something like this take off. With the eclectic culture and big batch of 30-somethings in Portland, co-working would be ideal. We know for a fact that there are lots of self-employed hackers living in Portland as well as lots of people who work for big companies from all over the globe but choose to live in Portland. I can see co-working spaces in NE, SE, the Pearl, etc. I can see events at each of these every week that help seed the next businesses, the next ventures. Connecting smart people and doing amazing things is just a few mouse clicks away.

The other really amazing thing about these co-working spaces is that they could lead to a federation of spaces across the globe. Imagine being able to travel anywhere in the world and find like-minded technocrats such as yourself and quickly and easily engage with them. Mix in a free desk for visitors (or a nominal fee) with wi-fi and you’re set.

If you’re interested in learning more, head over to the Co-working Portland wiki and sign-up, join in and make it happen!

I’m not sure who nominated me (thank you nameless and faceless, whoever you are), but I was selected by Red Herring for their annual “25 under 35″ review of up-and-coming entrepreneurs (to this day it takes a spell checker for me to spell that word - so much for being one).

I was mildly amused by the cover (there has to be an inside joke on the lollipop action - can’t wait to hear it). I was much-more-than-mildly amused when I saw over at Valleywag they had nominated the cover as one of the top 3 most embarrassing covers of 2006. The results proved that it was the least embarrassing of the most embarrassing. I mean how do you beat Arrington burning a bunch of Benjamin’s to light his cigar?! Priceless.

BTW - It took me a good four days to find a copy here in Portland, OR. The irony is that my mother had found two copies at a Barnes & Noble. Apparently they were the only two copies in the Portland-Metro area. So I snuck over to my folks house and swiped a copy … thanks Mom! Hahaha! :-)

So I’m really delighted and honored. Thanks so much Red Herring.

So I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice. (name that pop-culture reference, win an autographed copy of Red Herring magazine!! Note: you’ll need to provide your own copy as supplies are limited here in the Portland-area.)

Update: The full-story can be found here.

I had dinner with a good friend the other night and we started out at the Backstage which is a bar run by the McMenamin’s brothers. I can’t describe the coolness factor of this place. 80 foot ceilings?! Are you kidding me?! The McMenamin’s turn everything they touch to gold.

Stepping out into the blustery night air, we were greeted with Hawthorne Blvd in all of its night-time glory. Lined with shops, cafes, bars and restaurants its an extremely vibrant neighborhood. This must be an anomaly, right? But over to Belmont or further across town to the Pearl or NE to Sellwood to the South Waterfront its vibrant. No strip malls, no chain stores. Local, local, local. And the food is good. The beer is amazing. The spirits warm your belly. And we even make our own fuel here. What’s the story with this place?!

Portland Skyline

Originally uploaded by Infinite Wilderness.

Portland, OR has seen an influx of 25-35 year olds that is really changing the landscape of the city. Portland is an extremely livable city. Its affordable. The climate is mild (that’s an Oregonian’s way of saying ‘at least its only rain and not 4 months of snow’). Its beautiful (see insert). Its close to the ocean and the mountains. And its got *life*.

Its this livable environment that has attracted a large cadre of open source developers who choose to live locally and develop globally. There are all kinds of linux kernel hackers here. The Open Source Lab and the OSDL are here. IBM has a bunch of open source developers here. Intel. Informix. Ruby developers. Perl hackers. Python guys/gals. You name it, we’ve got a little bit of everything. Out of this eco-system come some really amazing companies that are starting to do some cool things.

Within the US, the two cities I think could most easily be turned into new silicon valleys are Boulder and Portland.
- Paul Graham

Its not about building the next Silicon Valley. The trends we’re seeing in Portland are reflected in the businesses that are starting up here. Jive Software started things off when they moved here a few years ago from New York. They wanted something livable and they got it. Now they are 30+ people and growing strong. No longer a startup, these guys are 100% growth stage and poised to do some great things.

Platial is a great Web 2.0 company. Building your own personal atlas. Mashup city. Di-Ann’s company is firing on all pistons and they are doing something insanely cool. Enabling users to annotate their own maps and share them with the world.

Rael recently left O’Reilly Media to start his own company and they just launched their first product a couple of weeks ago. Stikkit is another Web 2.0 play that helps you organize your daily life and make it easy to share with your friends, family or co-workers. Again, another amazing product that is focused on doing “something good” for its users.

And I wouldn’t be my shameless self if I didn’t plug my company. We’re working on a single sign-on technology for the Internet called OpenID. Its simple. Its easy to use. Easy to setup. Most importantly, its decentralized. Anybody can use it and it empowers a whole new set of services to exist on the Internet. Extremely disruptive by putting the user at the center of the equation OpenID is about doing “the right thing” when it comes to digital identity.

Brian Jamison heads up a great local company called OpenSourcery. They are a consulting firm that helps companies, non-profits and schools take control of the applications they use. They do this with open source. Brian’s company is growing like gangbusters and are looking to have a great year in 2007.

Just this week I got wind of yet-another-startup. SplashCast is a media syndication service and just this week they picked up former TechCrunch writer Marshall Kirkpatrick to be the director of content. I’m expecting some great things out of these folks when they launch in January.

Almost every single one of these companies has an open source slant to them but its not core to the business. They use the tools and paradigms that have been enabled by open source to help build their businesses. Each and every one has a central theme of “doing the right thing” for the users and helping them do more than they ever could. Couple that with the Portland way-of-life and you’ve got a recipe for some amazing, amazing things to happen.

Watch out world; 2007 will be known as the year when Portland puts itself on the tech map for good.

Through the magic of RSS, I’m able to stalk … err … discover some interesting conversations regarding OpenID.

I happened upon a discussion about using OpenID for authenticating VoIP clients to one another that was sparked by this post posted by Martin Geddes. That was followed up by Aswath with a post describing how you could use OpenID to help assert your identity with VoIP calls. This was followed up by Phoneboy (not his real name, I *think* - heh) leading to a discussion about OpenID and its lack of trust.

Great posts and great discussion guys. You pose some questions that aren’t obvious to the OpenID newcomer.

First off, I think OpenID would be great for this application. Its inevitable that as people begin to migrate to one identifier for the things they do on the Internet, it would also become a great point of contact for that user. Whether its as simple as a contact form at their OpenID public identity page all the way up to being able to initiate phone calls through/via the same page. As I’m making contributions all over the Internet people will be led back to my public identity page and want to contact me. Voice is just one of the possible ways to communicate with me.

Secondly, OpenID is not about trust. Its not about reputation. Its not about social networking. OpenID gives users the ability to claim that yes, I am this identifier. We had to start simple. In the past, people have tried to make too many assumptions going up the stack. For every assumption you make, the scope of possible adoption is limited. If we can agree on just one simple little thing; this identity/authentication layer, the other pieces will start to form on top of it.

Finally, OpenID is completely decentralized. That means anybody can bring up an OpenID identity provider and start creating OpenID’s that might do “bad things”. However, its this decentralized nature that makes it compelling for users, sites, developers and vendors to adopt it; there is no lock-in to one vendor. No mothership to phone home to. If its centralized, we’re back in the days of Passport. Decentralization of course makes trust much more difficult. However, one problem at a time. Trust will grow out of this platform over time because the community plumbing exists to extend the platform.

Aswath makes some interesting points:

In this scheme, my SIP Invite message could contain my OpenID and you can authenticate it using the documented mechanism. The scheme also allows for providing additional information that I have authorized the IdP to share it with you. Given this scheme is distributed and open, there is no need for a handful of dominating and intermediating IdPs.

This is exactly right. OpenID is maturing rapidly. The next piece of the puzzle is coming together with attribute exchange. Attribute exchange will allow users to do the above. Exchange arbitrary bits of data associated with my claimed identifier. I am this identifier and I have specific attributes associated with it.

Phoneboy makes the analogy that OpenID is like PGP but without the web of trust that falls out of it. In the very near future, I think we’ll see an open solution to the “group” problem. Now that I have this one identifier that I use for different things, wouldn’t it make sense to start making lists or groups of my friends, co-workers, family, etc as well? Since OpenID’s are unique to the Internet, couldn’t I then use those lists/groups all over the place? You can quickly start to see where this is leading. One identifier. One set of social networks. Lots and lots and lots of possibilities become clear in that world.

Update: Discussions continue all over the place on this.