MySpace confirms OpenID support

MySpace today is announcing support for the OpenID identify platform. This means users of services that let you log in to them with OpenID will be able to use their MySpace credentials for the login. As TechCrunch pointed out, though, this appears to be a "land grab for user identities," since MySpace isn't allowing users to log in to MySpace with an OpenID account from another identity provider.

Jim Benedetto, MySpace VP Technology, says that he is not opposed to letting users login to MySpace from other OpenID parties. The current initiative, he says, "is step one." "We're looking at down the road becoming the relying party," (a site that recognizes other OpenID logins) he said.

All MySpace users will, by default, get OpenIDs when the project is turned on at some point in the near future. If they don't use the OpenID login from other sites, they will not notice any changes to their MySpace login experience.

The company is also announcing today that two implementations of its Data Availability program are going live. It's showing how profile data from MySpace can be imported into user accounts in Eventful and Flixter.

Data Availability is a powerful concept. It makes it possible to take your profile page and your social network created in MySpace, and push them into another service. Like MySpace's OpenID initiative, this project is part of MySpace's plan to become a hub of identity.

MySpace's Data Availability program allows other sites to import MySpace profiles. Eventful shown here.

(Credit: MySpace)

While these initiatives are powerful and important for MySpace, and are good for users, neither implementation is, yet, fully open, since they're both one way. As I said, MySpace is not yet allowing users to login to the service with OpenIDs obtained elsewhere, nor is it allowing Data Availability partners to write data into MySpace profiles. Benedetto told me, "It would be very beneficial to us to have data coming in," but that the company needs to take a phased approach to supporting data sharing. "We're stepping in to uncharted territory," he said. Previous sharing projects in the industry have failed, he said.

In the future, Benedetto says, the OpenID and Data Availability projects will merge. Users will be able to use their MySpace OpenID to access their profile and network, "even when they are not on MySpace." Supporting OpenId will allow users to "login to the long tail of the Internet" via MySpace. Data Availability could make their profiles ubiquitous.

Full and open synchronization with other identify platforms and social networks would be much more complex than the current initiatives, and would likely confuse users at first, but ultimately this is what users are going to want: Truly portable social network data. It's the only way users can end up owning their online identities.

[jamalystic]

This is a great move by myspace and hope others follow suit. The users have to be in charge of their data and should always be free to trnsport them where ever and when ever possible. I belive this will open a new frontier for the internet: Data Portability: The Next Great Frontier for the Web (http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=542&doc_id=145677&F_src=flftwo)

[t26l]

Can you imagine an Internet where everybody issues email addresses but also recognizes only their own? Like you need an @aol.com address to write to people served by AOL? That's what companies like myspace and yahoo are doing with openid. They issue open ids and they expect others to accept them, but they accept only their own. So this is fake acceptance, this is a land grab and an attempt to fragment the internet. Yes they make excuses for it, but the fact is if you don't accept openid you are breaking the system, you still force people to have multiple ids. The underlying motive is that if people are forced onto myspace to connect with their friends, myspace doesn't have to compete on features with other companies. This should not stand, people who believe in an open Internet should boycott these companies and speak out. It is time for the government to enforce interoperability, as it did with the phone companies in the heyday. One alternative is Plaxo, which accepts openids and has made some progress in synching with other web services. I recommend people check it out or recommend other true openid supporting social networks.

[prabath_siriwardena]

It's great to here MySpace's annoucement to support OpenID and this is the first social networking site to do so. We hope facebook will also follow this effort.

Thanks.

Prabath
[http://blog.facilelogin.com]