Yahoo Improves Its OpenID Support
Yahoo continues to make strides to improve its OpenID implementation. Thursday it announced limited testing for Simple Registration, which supplies profile data once a user logs in with their Yahoo OpenID. Currently it is only testing Plaxo and Jyte.
The experience logging in with Jyte is remarkable. It only takes a few clicks and I’m started using the site. It receives my preferred nickname from Yahoo, so I’m not even asked to fill in anything else.
Plaxo, on the other hand, requires a process that feels like signing up. Requiring info after signing in with OpenID makes moot one of the best things about OpenID for website owners. You can lower the barrier to entry for users by letting them use the site as soon as they arrive from their provider.
To that end, Simple Registration should be able to help solve the double signup issue, assuming sites treat the process like Jyte and not like Plaxo. Other OpenID providers have been sharing user’s profile information, with permission, for some time.
This part of OpenID is important, and it’s good to see one of the big boys on board. Still, it’ll be hard to say OpenID has really made it until I can sign on to Yahoo with any OpenID.
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