From February the Telegraph.co.uk become the first British media company to become an OpenID provider, adopting the single-sign on standard for its reader accounts system. The move follows announcements by much larger online players including Yahoo! and Blogger last week, with Googe rumoured to be in the works. Apparently the Telegraph is planning a few more anouncements over the next few weeks, blogs Communities Editor Shane Richmond. OpenID is also supported by AOL, Orange and Digg. The Telegraph’s slightly more mature readers aren’t normally renowned for their their use of Digg, but having to remember fewer passwords is going to be a boon for this demographic.
by
Mike Butcher
on
January 21, 2008
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20 comments
We really need more consumers, rather than providers. There are plenty of places now to get an OpenID, but still not enough where you can use them.
The article mentions Digg. I don’t see any evidence that Digg supports OpenID as a consumer or provider (yet).
Agree with Julian (need more consumers, rather than providers). This by the way makes as much sense as mercedes benz selling cheese rolls in London. The telegraph have no community online or user base to justify this warped piece of PR
FYI: The last Audit Bureau of Circulations report has the Telegraph.co.uk on 12.8 million users and 109m page views as of November 2007.
I’m seeing a lot of news and hype around OpenID recently. I think its a fantastic idea BUT I really don’t see this catching on at all. I personally don’t know more than a handful of people who use OpenID (perhaps I just don’t know the right people). Are people really using it or is the excitement more about the potential?
@ dc crowley
“The telegraph have no community online or user base to justify this warped piece of PR”
So 11,000 registered bloggers on MyTelegraph in the first 24 weeks of the service is no community? I suppose you feel every social network needs 10 million users before it’s a *proper* community? The Telegraph introducing Open ID is the only way that services such as these are going to go mainstream and get the customers that you so crave.
So getting on for 13m users and an open blogging platform. No community or user base?
The point about community is not one of numerical size but about belonging. Just because concern X has n million users doesn’t mean they should be an identity provider for them, which seems to be what is happening here. The point about OpenId is that it allows people to manage their identity where they choose and to use *their* identity in numerous places. If all websites become providers and not consumers then we are just moving technology and not practice.
Yahoo also appear to be announcing a provider-only service.
Anyone providing a service who only acts as an OpenId provider is a stinking rotter and IS engaging in warped PR, whatever the size of their user database.