dotname

There are so much buzz around OpenID these days and we at .NAME are really exited about the larger players finally joining in (see Scott Kvetons post on Microsoft Cardspace and OpenID here). Looks like the big guys have finally understood that a “closed” digital identity system will not take off and become the global standard for ID management on the Internet.

Lots of groups have previously tried to solve the ID issues online. Just think back to the Liberty Alliance and also Passport, both perfectly acceptable systems, but also both too closed (or percieved to be closed) to get real take-up outside the core providers taking part.

A number of companies are working hard at providing the backends for OpenID management these days. JanRain.com is one of them, their solution can be found at Myopenid.com.

We offer our registrars a toolkit for .NAME that will assist in creating a really cool, fully integrated personal ID experience online. The solution gives you a personal email address (peter@morgan.name), personal URL (peter.morgan.name) and personal OpenID. We have also decided to let the Registrars offer a 90 day free trial - check out one of the free offerings at freeyourid.com. The OpenID backend provider we partner with for freeyourid.com is JanRain and their myopenid.com solution.

This toolkit also integrates with Pageflakes to give you a fully customised public and private webpage.

After you have signed up, go to one of the sites that have enabled OpenID logins (ex. ma.gnolia.com) and log in using your OpenID. Seeing how you login with your OpenID and how YOU are in charge of your identity is a real eyeopener.

–geir