Sunday, February 18, 2007

AOL and OpenID: Where we are It's not really a secret that AOL has been experimenting with OpenID. As I've said, I think that user-centric, interoperable identity is hugely important to enable the social experiences we're trying to provide. This is a work in progress, but things are coming along thanks to our authentication team's diligent effort. Here's where we are today: Every AOL/AIM user now has at least one OpenID URI, http://openid.aol.com/<;sn>. This experimental OpenID 1.1 Provider service is available now and we are conducting compatibility tests. We're working with OpenID relying parties to resolve compatibility issues. Our blogging platform has enabled basic OpenID 1.1 in beta, so every beta blog URI is also a basic OpenID identifier. (No Yadis yet.) We don't yet accept OpenID identities within our products as a relying party, but we're actively working on it. That roll-out is likely to be gradual. We are tracking the OpenID 2.0 standardization effort and plan to support it after it becomes final. Update: Thanks for all the responses; I've posted a followup over on dev.aol.com. 6:59:33 PM

AOL Now Supports OpenID. AOL Now Supports OpenID. Nurgled writes  "On Sunday John Panzer announced that AOL now has experimental OpenID server support. This means that every AOL user now has an OpenID identifier. OpenID is a decentralized cross-site authentication system which has been growing in popularity over the last few months. AOL is the first large provider to offer OpenID services, and though they do not currently accept logins to their services with OpenID identifiers from elsewhere, they are apparently working on it. The next big challenge for OpenID proponents is teaching AOL's userbase how to make use of this new technology."  [Slashdot] 6:56:54 PM

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