| Website | openid.net |
| Blog | planet.openid.net |
| Category | Communications |
| Employees |
The OpenID Foundation is a non-profit organization that manages the efforts to increase adoption of the OpenID standard across the web. By using the service, internet users can authenticate at various websites with one digital identity managed through the OpenID standard. OpenID came from the unification of 4 different user-centric identity efforts that learned about each others’ efforts at the [Internet Identity Workshop] in the fall of 2005: OpenID created by LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick, LID (Lightweight Identity) created by [Johannes Ernst] (http://www.crunchbase.com/person/johannes-ernst), founder of [NetMesh], XRI/i-names created by [Drummond Reed] and the XRI TC at [OASIS] and SXIP protocol created by [Dick Hardt] (http://www.crunchbase.com/person/dick-hardt), CEO of [Sxip] (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/sxip-identity).
In a display of its promise as a technology and its support by technology’s biggest players, the OpenID Foundation has a Corporate Board comprised of Google, IBM, Yahoo, VeriSign, and Microsoft.
| Website | openid.net |
| Blog | planet.openid.net |
| Stage | Live |
| Launch Date | May, 2005 |
For users attempting to manage a long list of log-in credentials for a variety of websites, OpenID attempts to eliminate that need by giving users a single digital identity through which they control their information. In its simplest form, the Open ID protocol allows a user to distinguish themselves via an identity-specific url and then log on to any website that supports Open ID with that single URL, rather than trying to remember a user name and password. The 2.0 version of OpenID also supports an authentification form called an XRI, which marries an i-name (similar to the original OpenID url) to an i-number(unique identifier which never changes), thus allowing for a more secure form of identification. Perhaps Open ID’s biggest win was Yahoo’s decision to allow Yahoo users to convert their Yahoo id’s into Open ID’s in January 2008.
