"On the other hand, it's also possible that they could shop the combination around to other sites as their own answer to Passport and OpenID - a universal web identity backed by a trusted brand."
[Sigh]
A universal web identity should not be "backed" by any particular brand. That's precisely the strength of OpenID (and not
MS Passport). You're free to use any OpenID provider which you trust (including yourself), but you aren't required to use anyone in particular, like this guy suggests Google could/should do.
For example, I recently set up my personal website URL to be my OpenID (very easy: two additional <link> tags), which currently delegates to an account I registered with the myopenid.com provider, but I could easily change it at any time to another provider if I found another better provider that I trusted more (or even myself using something like http://siege.org/projects/phpMyID/)
Now, if Google wanted to be an OpenID provider (like AOL, LiveJournal, Technorati, WordPress, and others have done) I would be all for that. What we don't need is some proprietary system.
I suggest anyone developing a web app look into supporting OpenID authentication. It's not too much additional work, and it would make the web a better place if it were widely deployed. Plaxo has detailed instructions on converting existing web apps to support OpenID: http://www.plaxo.com/api/openid_recipe
[Sigh]
A universal web identity should not be "backed" by any particular brand. That's precisely the strength of OpenID (and not MS Passport). You're free to use any OpenID provider which you trust (including yourself), but you aren't required to use anyone in particular, like this guy suggests Google could/should do.
For example, I recently set up my personal website URL to be my OpenID (very easy: two additional <link> tags), which currently delegates to an account I registered with the myopenid.com provider, but I could easily change it at any time to another provider if I found another better provider that I trusted more (or even myself using something like http://siege.org/projects/phpMyID/)
Now, if Google wanted to be an OpenID provider (like AOL, LiveJournal, Technorati, WordPress, and others have done) I would be all for that. What we don't need is some proprietary system.
I suggest anyone developing a web app look into supporting OpenID authentication. It's not too much additional work, and it would make the web a better place if it were widely deployed. Plaxo has detailed instructions on converting existing web apps to support OpenID: http://www.plaxo.com/api/openid_recipe
And for the rest of you, you should set up an OpenID and start using it wherever possible. Sam Ruby has good instructions on using your URL as an OpenID http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2007/01/03/OpenID-for-non-S... or OpenID.net has information on getting an OpenID from any number of providers: http://openid.net/get/