[uf-discuss] Re: XMDP Profile and OpenID

Sun Feb 4 08:48:15 PST 2007

Hi Sam,

(sorry for the dupe Sam, Chris, Steve and Ian)

> below is an extract from my blog header.  I have used the redirect trick to
> have my blog url www.vecosys.com authenticate against my Openid account. It
> got me thinking how could I get my hcard to be part of this process.  The
> simplest is to have my landing page http://samksethi.myopenid.com contain
> microformats which is why I think sites like www.linkedin.com or
> www.jyte.com might work.

We are seeing that most folks are using the delegation feature of OpenID to
use the provider of their choice and to not have to run their own identity
provider.

Honestly, we've struggled with what to land at the personal identity page on
MyOpenID.com.  We didn't want to turn this into a place to put your public
profile and then have something come up and have to back out of it.  The
folks at videntity have done some interesting work with microformats at your
personal identity page and we're also looking at doing the same.

> For exmaple if LinkedIn used OpenID to log me in and then linked that to my
> profile page. http://www.linkedin/in/samsethi that would be a good start as
> all of the LinkedIn page contains hCard and hResume.

Exactly.  This is another thought; allow users to redirect the content of
their personal identity page to where ever they choose; blog, LinkedIn, etc.
Then your OpenID provider becomes just that; the place you use to login on
the Internet.

> Bu how can we get my XFN network to link with my openid in order to create a
> "trust list" related to my profile. I was wondering if could point my
>
> <head profile="http://www.linkedin.com/in/samsethi/xfn" >  or could I use
> <link rel="openid.profile" href="http://samksethi.myopenid.com ">
>
> I guess all I want is a way to associate my opeid with em and my network.

Exactly ... This is the work that Chris has been talking about.

In the past, there has been the idea of using XFN on its own to do this.
However, you often get into the case that you may not want to share all of
your hCard information with everyone.  How do you identify who should be
able to see what data?

OpenID helps lower the barrier for users ... They could feasibly login to
the site where you keep your lists and be verified to get access to more of
that data.

One of the most interesting applications of this is being able to build
lists of your friends, family, co-workers, etc and then be able to 'share'
those out to other sites in any format they would like.  Now you could use
those lists to do access control ... If you land these lists at your
personal ID page, then the site that needs the information knows to go to
your OpenID to get it ... Very simple and yet very powerful.

OpenID is great in that it does solve the one username and one password
problem.  However, that's just the start.  Its going to be the application
of I-am-unique-on-the-Internet-now reality that will really cause adoption
of this technology especially when coupled with microformats, FOAF or API's.

- Scott