Re: [OpenID] OpenId Chance

Hi Dave,

I'm not sure what alternative you're proposing. Nor was I suggesting
that OpenID become "the Plaxo of identity systems" -- quite the
contrary!

In fact, the idea that I'm describing is to remove the intermediaries
*like* Plaxo from the import/export process, keeping you squarely in
control of the data that you share about yourself. If you offer a
public hcard at the end of your OpenID, that accelerates the degree to
which people are able to have accurate, public information about you,
nothing more.

As for your social connections, that's really up to you to work out
with your connections. The situation as it exists today is that anyone
who has an address book with email addresses and other contact details
(which I imagine covers a lot of people) can already import you into
all kinds of social networks without your permission. The proposal
that I described is a best case effort to prevent the kind of abusive
auto-joining behavior that could proliferate if we do actually achieve
some kind of portable social network.

For me, at least, I do want to be able to take my connections and
relationship with me when I leave a social network. I made those
connections and spent effort doing so; I don't want to leave only to
lose those ties.

At the same time, being able to respectfully but efficiently join and
move my network with me when it is contextually useful is an important
and relevant use case.

For a simple example, I have Basecamp accounts with 5 different
companies. Every time that I join a new one, not only do I need yet
another username/password, but I also need to import my coworkers so
that I can collaborate with them (this is also true for sites like
Blinksale or Harvest that make use of the Basecamp API). The proposal
that I made could accommodate this need.

Dave, I'm very curious about your thoughts on this -- can you expand
on the kind of control that you would like? And perhaps who OpenID
helps or diminishes that control?

Thanks,

Chris

On 1/26/07, Dave Kearns <dkearns <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> IMHO nothing would do more to kill OpenID or, at best, consign it to a
> limited niche, than becoming the Plaxo of identity systems. I'll put my
> identity data out where I intend it to go, thank you, not where someone with
> whom I have a tenuous relationship (at best) decides to poke his/her nose.
>
> -dave
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: general-bounces <at> openid.net [mailto:general-bounces <at> openid.net]On
> > Behalf Of Chris Messina
> > Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:44 AM
> > To: general <at> openid.net
> > Subject: Re: [OpenID] OpenId Chance
> >
> >
> > This is the general concept and thrust for marrying OpenID with
> > microformats.
> >
> > I intend to write about this soon, but essentially the idea is to host
> > an hcard on the end of your OpenID, and contained within that hcard
> > would be your XFN relationships.
> >
> > Obviously if you have a blog at the end of your OpenID and use
> > WordPress, you're well on your way to having a publicly-portable
> > social network.
> >
> > There are two elements of this to consider, however:
> >
> > First, is that not everyone will appreciate having their details
> > shared about them by others (see FOAF) on a public portal. This could
> > be remedied by, at the least, concealing the XFN relationships behind
> > OpenID authentication.
> >
> > Second, just as folks may not appreciate their contact information
> > being shared on the open web for them, still others may not want to be
> > added to Social Network X automatically. To some degree, Plaxo's
> > Universal Address Book Widget (http://www.plaxo.com/api/widget) puts
> > you, the inviter, in the position of responsibility for spamming your
> > friends. The same should be true for importing and exporting social
> > networks in two ways:
> >
> > 1. no one should be automatically added to a social network unless
> > they requested it. Therefore, whenever contacts are imported into a
> > system as a step in rebuilding or *subscribing* to one's social
> > network, the next step will be to *invite* those contacts who are not
> > already in the system to join.
> > 2. Now, if certain contacts are discovered or cross-referenced in the
> > system and are discovered to already exist, the network's internal
> > messaging system may be used to invite those contacts to connect, or
> > to be added to a non-reciprocal relationship (as in accelerating the
> > discovery of the "Add as a friend" process).
> >
> > Now, what I think is actually most interesting about this proposal is
> > that, should OpenID take off, the need to import/export your social
> > network at each new site will actually diminish, not increase. For
> > example, you don't download the Yellow Pages into every new cell phone
> > you buy, do you? Instead, you have a simple addressing mechanism (aka
> > the phone number) to connect with people. And, while you currently
> > have to sync your address book with your phone to create a focused
> > subset of the Yellow Pages, I imagine that true user-centric identity
> > would make this syncing process somewhat obsolete for when you log in
> > to a service and *share* your connections, aren't you then putting the
> > onus on the service to maintain its awareness of who you're connected
> > with? And, on top of that, all you need are URLs for people in order
> > to contact them with the simple messaging exchange -- meaning that
> > internal network messaging systems will become somewhat redundant.
> >
> > If, instead of going to Flickr, MySpace, Facebook and all the rest
> > that have their own internal messaging systems, (like email used to
> > be) and instead log directly into my iDP Inbox (which, acting as my
> > agent, has collected all my messages) and am able to get all my
> > messages in one place, I can then respond by sending messages to
> > people's OpenIDs, instead of through those service's internal
> > mechanisms.
> >
> > I would strongly recommend considering this proposal, which is based
> > on and built with technology and standards that are available *today*
> > (and in fact are already being deployed). And is also respectful of
> > people's attention, and of their increasingly limited desire to join
> > YASN.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> > On 1/26/07, Roland Sassen (using mozilla) <sassen <at> thinsia.com> wrote:
> > > As there seem to be many people on this list with real names,
> > > the time has come to admit that hiding some basic information about your
> > > person is not necessary.  This opens the possibility to openly store
> > > this basic identity information
> > > on your personal internet portal, or just web-site, which can be the
> > > starting point of your
> > > internet experience. Store your OpenId server here, your list of trusted
> > > sites and persons,
> > > your cross-site reputation, and more. This is a user-centric solution,
> > > which is a more useful attribute than
> > > "decentralized". As CardSpace uses the end-device as a repository, which
> > > cannot be secured,
> > > OpenId can make a difference here. I blogged about this OpenId Chance
> > > here <http://www.thinsia.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry070118-135301>
> > > Roland Sassen <http://www.heartbeat-id.com/15>
> > >
> > > THINSIA <http://www.thinsia.com>
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > general <at> openid.net
> > > http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/general
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Chris Messina
> > Citizen Provocateur &
> >   Open Source Ambassador-at-Large
> > Work: http://citizenagency.com
> > Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog
> > Cell: 412 225-1051
> > Skype: factoryjoe
> > This email is:   [ ] bloggable    [X] ask first   [ ] private
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>
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--

-- 
Chris Messina
Citizen Provocateur &
  Open Source Ambassador-at-Large
Work: http://citizenagency.com
Blog: http://factoryjoe.com/blog
Cell: 412 225-1051
Skype: factoryjoe
This email is:   [ ] bloggable    [X] ask first   [ ] private