Google Apps gives OpenID a boost

Google has turned each of the one million plus Google Apps customer domains into an OpenID provider, enabling millions of people to sign in to OpenID-supporting websites with their work, school or organization identity.

Good news, you'd think? Well, not all are reacting that way.

The way Google has achieved this is by extending their Google OpenID Federated Login API to refer to Google Apps custom domains if a "valid" OpenID identity -- in essence, an URL to a profile with an OpenID provider -- isn't found.

An example of how this looks can be found in my company's press release on the subject at http://wecandobiz.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/press-release/.

Although this feature usefully extends OpenID, it adds a "proprietary" feature to the way that OpenID sign in occurs on a site if the user is to be able to login using their Google Apps custom domain. It's this that has got members of the OpenID Foundation worried (see the OpenID discussion pages at http://openid.net/pipermail/board/2009-July/).

OpenID always sounded great and I've blogged before on the race for adoption between it and Facebook Connect as the most dominant identity for shared sign in. A year or more further on, I can see a role for both -- and later entrant Twitter OAuth -- as people typically maintain several identities when using the web (e.g. Facebook for personal use, OpenID for business use) and so support of all leading shared identity systems is important.

But speaking as someone who support 6 different methods of sign in on his (business focused) website other than the native sign in, OpenID identities currently make up some 2% of third party sign ins. Twitter sign ins account for nearly 50% of sign ins (the full breakdown can be found at http://wecandobiz.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/which-identities-people-use-to-sign-in-to-wecando-biz/).

EDIT: I should point out that 2% of sign ins are using an OpenID URL sign in, whereas Yahoo and Google e-mail address sign ins, which also use OpenID underneath, account for another 22% of sign ins. Thanks to Tore Steen of JanRain for reminding me I should make the disinction.

Google's move may indeed add some proprietary elements to an open standard, but they make it a lot more usable and also bring more clout to an initiative that deserves to succeed because it benefits everyone.

I can understand the frustrations of the "purists", but use of the Google API is optional and doesn't stop standard implementations from working; it just means a whole bunch of sites may opt to make it easier for the millions of Google Apps users to sign in.

We've been happy to add it to our site using JanRain's RPX solution and I'll be reporting back in due course on whether Google's move has given OpenID the boost I hope it does. With the excitement surrounding Google Wave -- part of Google Apps remember -- promising a further boost to numbers, OpenID may have a great future ahead, even though not all OpenID Foundation members may appreciate it.

As ever, I welcome your comments.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz