Taking a Stand to Promote OpenID

OpenID is a win-win for blog comments. It’s a win for the comment author, since it means less info to type. It’s a win for the blog owner, since it means the comments have a “real” identity behind them. There are some great OpenID providers out there (I’m a big fan of Vidoop).

I’m going to take a bit of a stand. Effective immediately, I will no longer comment on tech blogs that don’t support OpenID for comment authentication. Google offers it as a Blogger option. It’s available as a super-easy-to-install WordPress plugin. Movable Type has it as a built-in feature. If you’re using another lesser-known system, rally the troops for OpenID support.

And I’ll put my time where my mouth is: I’ll help you. If you follow those links above, and can’t figure it out, or you try it and it doesn’t work. I’ll help. Send me an e-mail. I want you to have OpenID.

I realize I’m just one (mostly insignificant) guy. And the reality is that if I stop commenting on some blogs, nobody will notice. But somewhere in my little fantasy world, this move might help spread OpenID adoption, and as Martha says, that’s a Good Thing™.

Tagged as: openid, wordpress, blogger, movabletype, vidoop

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Posted on:: Thursday, April 24th, 2008 15:15

Category:: General Info, Rants, Social Networks

David Frey Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 15:27

Amen to that. I’ll join.

Todd Stadler Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 15:43

Hmm. Because I’m stupid/stubborn, I’m still using my own home-brew blogging system, for which there is not yet any support for OpenID, you understand.

I certainly think OpenID makes more sense and is easier (for nerds, at least) than any other sort of commenter authentication. But it can’t and shouldn’t replace the standard unauthenticated name/email/URL set that I (and you) currently have. Just saying.

Aaron B. Hockley Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 15:49

You’re right Todd, it shouldn’t replace anonymous comments. It should supplement them, as an alternative.

And my stand only applies to tech blogs (for now), whom I hold to a higher / more modern standard for implementing smart tech things.

Chris O'Rourke Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 15:58

I support this as well. Also I’m willing to help get any site running on OpenID based authentication as well.

Todd Stadler Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 15:59

I’m still a little shaky on OpenID, so this may be a dumb question, but what is the relationship between the commenter Gravatar icons and the OpenID login? How are they correlated?

Aaron B. Hockley Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 16:01

There is no relation between Gravatar and OpenID… Gravatar is based on the e-mail address used to comment (whether it’s user-provided or OpenID-supplied). Use of OpenID and Gravatars is independent.

http://aaron.binprop.org/ Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 18:51

+1 Hooray. My personal stand was the OpenID-enable all the web software I support; Drupal, WordPress, Moodle, MediaWiki etc. Good times.

Rick Turoczy Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 19:00

Bravo! Consider me the water station attendant on your OpenID marathon. Or something. My analogies are a tad fragmented as of late.

Suffice it to say, I applaud your taking this stance.

And I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank Chris O’Rourke (who also offers to help) for recently repairing the errors that had me wallowing in my own OpenID hypocrisy.

Jmartens Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 19:32

I don’t even know how to comment using one of the many OpenID’s I apparently have from services like Yahoo, etc.

Until it is fool/idiot proof, it isn’t for me.

and yes, I am calling myself a fool/idiot

Rick Turoczy Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 20:11

@jmartens If you spent half as much time learning how to use your OpenID as you do complaining about not knowing how to use your OpenID, this conversation would be over.

But in all seriousness, it can be lacking in terms of “being intuitive.” I’m happy to take the time to walk you through it, if you want.

Super simple. Truly.

Aaron B. Hockley Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 20:30

Jmartens: Take a look at Yahoo’s OpenID information which talks about how to enable using your Yahoo account for OpenID. If it’s still fuzzy, I can help.

Rick Turoczy Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 21:03

String irony: Due to the autologin as admin, Aaron isn’t using OpenID to comment.

Chris Messina Thursday, April 24th, 2008 / 21:49

+1 dude. I support ya!

Jacob Burke Friday, April 25th, 2008 / 01:21

Have the plugin up and running on my blog now. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help out.

Lia Hollander Friday, April 25th, 2008 / 09:56

My god, it’s an OpenID love fest! Bring your happy OpenID enabled selves over to Treasurelicious.com

Where it’s all OpenID enabled ALL THE TIME!

Brian Kissel Friday, April 25th, 2008 / 11:06

Several previous comments suggest that using OpenID isn’t as intuitive as it could be, which is limiting adoption and usage. You might want to check out JanRain’s ID Selector (www.idselector.com) which was designed to address this specific market need. You can read reviews on it at https://www.idselector.com/site/testimonials and see a screen cast demo at https://www.idselector.com/site/screencast. You can also see it in production at http://claimid.com/# or http://www.twitterfeed.com/auth/login/

Kevin Fox Saturday, April 26th, 2008 / 16:14

Thanks for the mention Aaron. We are always working to make our OpenID provider (http://myvidoop.com) easier to use. Vidoop would be totally behind starting some kind of demand OpenID campaign, grassroots, with a cool logo and some shirts? eh?

Also if you are a myVidoop affiliate you can create your own ID Selector from within our site.

Francis Norton Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 / 03:34

OK, I’ve just updated inpraiseofdreams.blogspot.com to accept registered or openid comments only.

Actions may speak louder than words, but both together is loudest…

Scott Muc Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 / 09:14

I definitely support this!

Mr David Christiansen Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 / 09:35

I Support that!

Ramiro Berrelleza Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 / 10:32

Totally behind this! What is the stand of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, etc… regarding this?

Adron Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 / 12:49

Ditto.

Ramiro - Microsoft has their own ID, but as Hanselman points out on his blog there is an open source .NET implementation out now. Google also has their own ID system so I’m not sure what they want to do about Open ID. Amazon and Yahoo have pieces out there already, you’ll have to do a search and check it out…

Tom Offermann Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 / 19:22

Vidoop should be giving you some sort of a kickback! I just opened a MyVidoop account (thanks to your advocacy), and here’s my first OpenID-enabled comment.

Brian Kissel Sunday, May 11th, 2008 / 07:19

JanRain’s myOpenID service now also offers phone-based, two-factor authentication for added security: CallVerified: https://www.myopenid.com/about_callverifid

Demand.OpenID.net: A One Click Call to Action - biginfo.org Sunday, May 18th, 2008 / 10:43

[...] Brian Ellin says the project was inspired by blogger Aaron Hockley’s recent oath to no longer comment on tech blogs that fail to offer OpenID login. Way to go [...]

http://roses-rejoice.livejournal.com/ Sunday, July 20th, 2008 / 17:47

I am trying to see if this OpenID thing works…because I set it up the way LJ suggested and I haven’t been able to use it to comment on blogspot. If it works here but not on Blogspot then I’ll know where the problem is.

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Taking a Stand to Promote OpenID

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