5.21.2009

My HOLY FREAK Moment: Facebook + OpenID


So my good friend over at Silicon Alley Insider discovered my Facebook status proclaiming my shock at Facebook's actual adoption of OpenID (the rumors had been swirling for a while, but I never thought I'd see it happen). Now, to Nick's point in the article, he wasn't exactly clear on what all the fuss was about other than it's a new "handy feature" for logging into Facebook.

My response as found in the article's comments as to why there's all the fuss:

"Hey nick...thanks for the shout out....i can understand the 'its neat but not big news" POV...but if you buy that value of data portability, this is a big move for that. Granted, I actually totally agree with Joe...

@Joe Weisenthal...OpenID is too geeky for the non-geek user (no one gets using a URL instead of an email as an identifier) but nevertheless, the simple fact that Facebook took this step is amazing from a (potential) data access standpoint. I remember hearing rumblings a while ago about FB supporting OpenID but never thought I'd see it happen. However, as far as open standard identity services go, OpenID is the current "leader"...but

to @bojan babic's point, yes, FBC was a great step in allowing for interoperability and identity data portability, but FBC fails to leverage any kind of standards (as to be expected). I'm not entirely sure why FB would pass the leading role to OpenID, I'll have to see exactly what Zuck said about it, but my initial guess is that it has to do with the data portability community pushing for standards for identity, relationship and activity data markup and the interoperability of that data...if FB is going to stay in the game once our identities become decentralized, they are going to have to start embracing open standards....but again, I could be just speaking obtusely here.

PS- more on data portability at the www.DataPortabilityProject.org"

5.13.2009

Status Updates (Infographically) Explained

Is there any other way to explain things other than infographically?

Status updates explained from quub.com on Vimeo.



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