I read a release today that WordPress, the software behind this blog, will be supporting Open ID. That means that anyone with an Open ID URL could “sign in” to my blog and make a comment without actually registering directly with my blog.
Turns out that AOL, Wikipedia, Firefox, Microsoft and others are also supporting or planning to support Open ID, so it looks like this thing is really catching on. I don’t know that much about it, but it seems to me that Open ID could make my life easier as I move around the Web. I don’t like filling out forms to register on new sites - especially if I’m not a frequent visitor. Still, I understand why blogs and websites want me to register. They don’t want spam and they DO want to learn who is visiting.
Learning the identity of Colts fans is the PRIMARY reason why we’re building MyColts.net. We had over 6 million unique visitors to our flagship website, colts.com, last year, but we only know the names and addresses of abou 50,000 of these fans. We hope to build a database of individual fans so we can watch their behavior, discover what they want, appreciate which fans drive more value for the team, sell more Colts products and services to these fans, and build demographic / psychographic profiles of our fans so that we can help our sponsors connect with the types of fans they want as customers. MyColts.net is a rich application that fans can use for free in exchange for sharing their identities with the team.
So if we support Open ID, we’re allowing fans to use our system without telling us who they are (or at least that’s how understand it to work), unless we provide the unique URL.
Supporting Open ID could allow more people to enter MyColts.net, and that would drive more page views (which is money to us), but it would also make it easier for problems to occur. Moderating deviant behavior is one of our BIGGEST concerns in hosting a social net. Requiring fans to register and share their identities should deter most fans from posting inappropriate stuff. If fans are allowed to roam freely without revealing who they are, it will likely open the door to more issues than we would have had.
Open source versus walled garden? It’s always the question.
As we design a niche social net, we realize what we’re up against. MySpace is an 800 pound gorilla. Why would people want to manage profiles in multiple sites?
Clearly not everyone who joins MyColts will already have a MySpace account, but as time passes more and more fans will already be managing their online profiles somewhere - and if not with us - then we may become a second fiddle or a third wheel (and become expendible).
Still, if we can’t beat Myspace, maybe we can “join” em?
As a niche site, we have opportunities to sponge off the big guys - and I think we should take advantage of these opportunities. Sites like PimpMySpace.com have aggregated collections of wallpaper and other design stuff that myspace users can grab and apply to their personal pages.
This is a boon for Myspace. It makes it easier for people to trick out (pimp) their pages and personalize their looks. After a user has gone to the trouble to create a great look, he shares it with pimpmyspace, and others can use if freely. I’m suggesting we build our personal profile pages (inside mycolts.net) to accept these page designs - so that if you want to apply your myspace look into your colts pages, you can do so freely. Or, maybe fans would more freely walk away from myspace if they knew that they could still take advantage of all the great, third party, user generated toys that the myspace ecosystem has already created.
I suppose this is the other side of the sword for myspace.
This Open ID thing is one of many opportunities / challenges that are popping up that have the potential to change the game. My hope is that people will behave online as they do offline. As the markeplace becomes more global, people cling more tightly to their “tribal” roots. They don’t want to let go of their local culture in order to participate in the global economy. Rather, they want to preserve their uniqueness even as they participate in the greater economomy. Much as Europe has adopted a common currency yet hasn’t merged into one big country, perhpaps there’s a way that Open ID can create a common standard that actually allows niche sites (like small countries) to survive and thrive.
I think we have a ways to go before openID is totally accepted and who is to say it will actually be adopted after it is thoroughly weathered by hackers and scammers. Let’s say someone is able to take over your openID credential, now you have an argument that you’re at greater risk than ever before. It’s like having one key for every lock you encounter in your life. Even though you have the inconvenience of multiple logins you’re at least less vulnerable of losing everything. I’m sure this can be debated.
By the way Microsoft Passport had tons of support (eBay etc.) when it launched and now I don’t even think Microsoft uses it.
I’m not jumping on the bandwagon just yet. However, I will be watching closely.
The idea behind OpenID is an important one - lowering barriers to entry. In some ways this is less about the uber-member who has 100 different accounts to manage (many of which are likely the same username/password anyway) than the one who has a few very different ones who might be encouraged to seek out and contribute to new communities without the hurdle of managing yet another account.
Maybe I’m wrong about it, but I also thought Open ID isn’t an anonymous-maker, it’s a profile unification tool. This isn’t like Bit Torrent trying to mask identity. Anyone making a comment or contributing to a community will still leave an identifiable footprint, even if you have to look in a centralized place for some of that data.