Open ID - Tomorrow Logon Manager

Open ID: Tomorrow’s Logon Manager.

When you need to use a particular web-based service, you create an account in the concerned website by signing up with a user name and password.

Although, many developments have graced the Internet, this registration process is still the same.

No matter whether it is email, article submission, blogging, RSS feed subscription, or social networking, you have to sign up properly by entering all your details, time and again.

Today, our needs are too many, and there are too many web services for each job. Since you may sign up with so many websites offering these services, managing user credentials for them all will be rather difficult.

You require a better method for that. And that is OpenID.

OpenID is a method to log on any website without having to go through tedious registration process. This is because you have registered elsewhere, and this other entity is capable and willing to share your details. All you need is allowing it. This entity is known as an OpenID provider or OpenID server.

How OpenID Works

You can use OpenID to log on many OpenID-enabled websites out there. Some of them are WikiTravel, Magnolia, iSpeakX, etc., among thousands of others. The logon pages of these sites have a special logon button labeled “Log in with your OpenID.”

The OpenID providers are many out there, letting you register your OpenID with your user data. An OpenID looks like a website URL, known as a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) or XRI (Extensible Resource Identifier).

Its format is idname.provider.org. The URI has a target page that contains the OpenID provider detail embedded in its HTML code. The web service opens this page and scans through the code to find it.

Once you have typed in your OpenID in the field provided, you will be taken to the OpenID server’s website, where you can set how much of your user information may be shared with the new website you are about to sign up. Also, you can set the system to identify you automatically every time you try to log on or just this time.

How to Get OpenID

Big surprise is that you may already have an OpenID.

People using one of these services already have their OpenIDs: AOL, Blogger, Yahoo, LiveJournal, Flickr, Technorati, WordPress, Vox, etc. The format is usually username.servicename.com.

In case of blogs, the blog URL will be the OpenID (blogname.blogspot.com or blogname.wordpress.com). You can use this to log on OpenID-enabled websites.

While most of you may already have OpenIDs, those who don’t have one or want to use a different provider can register their OpenIDs with several of the providers out there. You can have multiple OpenIDs. Some of the providers are myOpenID, myID.net, claimID, VeriSign Personal Identity Provider (VeriSign PIP), TypeKey, etc.

Use Your Own Website

You can embed the OpenID code obtained from any provider into your website HTML code. This will make your website URL itself your OpenID. This is a nice way to authenticate, since only you have access to your website, and you will be identified as the owner of your website in the whole Web.

When you sign up with an OpenID server, you will get a URI, which will be your OpenID. Now, you can embed the following code into the HTML of your website to transform its URL as your OpenID.

The tags have to be added to the element of HTML code. Replace what are italicized with respective values.

Conclusion

OpenID is an open standard today, and it is completely free. Anyone can be the user or provider of OpenID without paying or registering with any entity. You can be your own OpenID provider by using phpMyID.

Tomorrow’s Web is made today. The more the services hitting the Net, the more difficult it will be for users to manage their logon credentials. In such a scenario, OpenID will be the inevitable solution.

As more OpenID providers hit the market, and more services start to accept it, it will be difficult for a web service to prosper tomorrow without supporting OpenID.