Spread OpenID. Just another website on a topic which is just cool with some geeks? Well, hopefully not. As you have probably guessed by the name already, Spread OpenID is a platform helping to spread the idea of OpenID and make it more known among users. It’s mainly focused on end users who have read or heard about it but don’t know where to start. It is not a competing site to OpenID.net or any other site. Spread OpenID works alongside the OpenID community wherever possible.
The first problem many end users are facing is finding an OpenID provider. Maybe you know that OpenID is a decentralised single sign-on (SSO) system which simply means that no one owns it and that you can choose from different providers which is very positive for users, of course; they can choose a provider they trust and which fits their needs. At first it might be a little bit confusing choosing a provider but just think of email providers. There are countless of them and many are offering a different set of features. The same applies for OpenID providers.
We have sent a survey to some more well-known providers - some didn’t reply and two did not want to participate - and asked about the features they are providing. The choice of providers shouldn’t be misleading to you, though. The number is limited because it was confusing to most people to have a list of 50 or even more providers and quite frankly, it made things a lot more easier for us as well. Our list of providers will expand over time, though. If you favour a more complete list just have a look at the wiki on OpenID.net. Browsing that list is especially recommended if you are looking for a provider from your own country or a provider you have heard good things about already.
Please note that we don’t want to recommend any provider. The provider listing should help to make a decision on your own. Also feel free to experiment with different providers; choose the one you feel most comfortable with. You can even use more than one provider if you like (e.g . one for business purposes and one for more private sites); once again, it’s just like email. If you run your own site we recommend delegation. It makes things a lot easier when switching providers.
We hope that this site will be beneficial for you. It will expand over time offering news on OpenID and also some background information. If you want to help out and write an in-depth article on an OpenID related topic, please get in touch with us and provide a short explanation on your background and the article’s topic.
The provider comparison can be found here; also some technical terms you will come across while reading the comparison can be found on this page.
Oh yeah, we love feedback, both positive and negative. And even more you can test your brand new OpenID with us by logging in to post a comment. 
17 Comments
Good luck guys! A very worthy cause!
Thanks Marshall! Hopefully people consider it useful.
So, other than keeping a keen eye on progress, what can interested developers do to help out? Any projects in need of some assistance? Documentation?
OpenID has gotten the attention of some key players and I particularly like VeriSign’s implementation. I don’t have a whole lot of time on my hands, but when I do have time - it would be nice to know where I can look to extend a helping hand.
What’s I’d *really* love to see is OpenIDs used as the primary username for new accounts, not just as an alternate login method (as I’ve seen in a few places so far). But I’ll take what I can get.
Marshall’s nice article kick-started me … I’ve been meaning to set up a server for the longest time.
So this is a bit off to one-side, but for those it suits: I cobbled together snippets from the most obvious sites; they’re spliced them together at my funky blogspot blog.
I hope to have phpMyId running “real soon now”.
*tired … no preview … must … keep … gasping …*
cheers
–bentrem
Why not have something like http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ where you can select the providers you are interested in and see a side-by-side comparison of their features. That would be much easier than having to scroll up and down all the time.
Sam, great approach on CMS Matrix. I agree that we have to find a solution when there will be more providers listed.
@Cameron: We haven’t thought of any specific additions yet. The site should be focused on endusers so if you have ideas for a longer article on any OpenID related topic, go for it. It shouldn’t target developers, though.
@Carsten Potter: I suppose the things that stikes me is that I eventually wound up one somebody’s personal websites before I found a good set instructions on how get into OpenID as an end-user.
Part of this is that it’s difficult to search for what you don’t know. Perhaps SpreadOpenID would be a good place to keep some compreheinsve docs geard toward users new to OpenID.
OpenID.org is great for developer docs and wiki’s aren’t always the best place for non-technical docs either. If I started putting something together, would you be interested in keeping it here?
Some good articles should definitely be here. So if you have ideas for an article just go for it. So Thomas and I don’t have to write them
It was a good idea to tell us what the article will be about before you start writing, though. Otherwise it could be that a) we won’t be interested (unlikely though) or b) someone else had the same idea already.
as well as a matix it might be useful to have quick access (front pages links) to sections that highlight providers that meet specific user needs (think of these as different personas that might use your site):
Providers that users my already be registered with (Do you already have an OpenID?): e.g. AOL, LiveJournal etc. (Any way you could automate that to look at the users browsing history without causing privacy concerns?)
Providers aimed at new users: e.g. Myopenid?
Providers with “non-standard” login methods for users that want a simpler, or “more secure” login: e.g. um, there’s one that uses images isn’t there? Another using jabber?
Providers that support OpenID 2 or whatever the latest bleeding edge feature it is that consumer sites might require (e.g. attribute exchange and management).
Good work! It certianly will help End-users. Should be useful too if list of good RPs is included. Without RP, end user can still be clueless.
I’d like to offer a +1 to the matrix idea for comparison.
I’d also like to see some analysis of the ease of use to manage multiple profiles, etc. I think simplifying the concepts is essential for mass adoption. Have a provider with lots of options isn’t useful if it’s near impossible for regular folks to use them.
The beauty of opedid is you could get people to rate and review their provider and you can know for certain they using that provider. You could have a “rate my provider” form and you don’t even need to ask who their provider is, just get them to log in with their openid.
Thanks a lot for all suggestions. We’re happy to see some discussion being initiated, not only by comments here but also by emails we’ve got. We’re collecting ideas and see what we can realize.
Sam, I don’t think we’ll have a provider rating here, though. If we really managed to get new users (i.e. not those who regularly blog about it, work in that industry,…) to participate in a voting, I guess most of them used a popular service like AOL or WordPress as a provider. On the other hand there are people like me who use different providers because I think there are some which have equally great features. I had to log in at least three times to make sure all of them got their well deserved rating.
Also OpenID Directory (which is also run by Thomas) has a voting system already, though not exclusively for providers.
If you have an account with a jabber service such as Google Talk you can use the openid url [jabber address]. This provider supports XEP-0070 for authentication using XMPP.
@Carsten
“If we really managed to get new users (i.e. not those who regularly blog about it, work in that industry,…) to participate in a voting, I guess most of them used a popular service like AOL or WordPress as a provider”
I think that’s true, in that it would be a major source of adoption. However, most users are already used to having accounts at the all the leading online players.
If they found value in OpenID I think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect them to ’shop around’ particularly amongst companies that they already had accounts with. In such a case have a comparison between those companies would be very useful. We should be trying to push those companies to compete to be the best provider.
Well, the funny thing is we contacted three of the more general services listed on top of the provider comparison page and none of them replied. If I’ll find time (whenever that will be) I may try and compare them. If you can push them to be more public about their implementations, though, please do so.
@Carsten
“On the other hand there are people like me who use different providers because I think there are some which have equally great features. I had to log in at least three times to make sure all of them got their well deserved rating.”
A good consumer allows you to link more than one OpenID to the same account. Once you’ve linked an OpenID once you should be able to adjust your ratings for it’s provider on a “rate my providers” page regardless of which ID you used to sign into the site with.
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