OpenID has been starting to gain more traction lately, with more and more large companies (e.g. Yahoo, AOL, MySpace) starting to become OpenID providers. (Though irritatingly they don’t allow you to use another provider’s OpenID to log in to their services…) I still think the concept has some flaws, which probably can be rectified, but I don’t want to turn this into another opinion post.

WP-OpenID is a plugin that integrates OpenID into WordPress. Once installed, it opens up a couple uses for OpenID with your blog. Accounts can be linked to OpenIDs, and should you select the option, people will be able to enter an OpenID to leave a comment, rather than entering an email and name. I like the idea, since it makes commenting quicker and easier, but there’s one flaw. You enter the ID into the URL field in the comment form, so your name will link to your OpenID URL instead of your blog. The remedy is to delegate your OpenID.

Well, it looks like OpenID may be catching on. (I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing, though.) Now, wouldn’t it be cool if you could use your website’s domain as your OpenID URL? It’s easy to do. I’ll use my ID as an example.

First, create an OpenID at any provider of your choice. (You can find a list of providers here.) The URL I ended up with is redwallhp.myopenid.com.

Next, decide what you want your customized URL to be. Do you want just your domain, like mydomain.com, or will you set-up a subdomain (or subdirectory)? I ended up picking my new personal blog at matt.ntugo.com.

Now you just need to add two lines of code to your header.

<link rel="openid.server" href="http://www.myopenid.com/server“>
<link rel=”openid.delegate” href=”http://redwall.hp.myopenid.com/“>

Replace the italicized part of the first line with the URL of your provider’s OpenID server. A quick Google search will help you find the right URL (e.g. openid.claimid.com for ClaimID users). Replace the italicized bit of the second line with the OpenID URL your provider gave you.

And your done! You can now use your domain as your OpenID URL. This has the benefits of being easy to remember, and you can just change those lines of code if you decide you decide to switch from MyOpenID to ClaimID.

Well, it looks like OpenID is catching on. Two major companies (Google and Yahoo) are slowly launching support for the “single sign-in” standard. On a related note, I voiced some concerns last April about OpenID. They seem very relevant nowadays.

Yahoo is implementing OpenID alongside their existing Yahoo ID system, giving Yahoo users OpenIDs. According to openid.yahoo.com, you will be able to enter the URL “yahoo.com” into an OpenID box, bouncing you over to Yahoo where you can login with your Yahoo ID. Does this mean they’ve got their system set-up so you don’t get a unique OpenID URL (like id.yahoo.com/your_yahooid)? Another worrying note: Yahoo is providing OpenIDs, but are they going to allow people with non-Yahoo OpenIDs log-in to Yahoo sites (Flickr, for example)? Also, what’s to stop Yahoo from preventing your Yahoo-provided OpenID from logging you in to certain sites (i.e. competitors)?

Google’s Blogger.com will soon be an OpenID provider. Once this new feature makes it out of draft and into the main feature set, your blog’s URL will be your OpenID URL. If your blog is at you.blogspot.com, that’s your OpenID. It even works if you have your own domain name. Now, will they start allowing OpenID sign-ins with other Google services? Who knows, they might.