The fog is clearing on our support for OpenID as a method for accessing your MatchKey. Like most good development practices these days, that means we’re wading into the waters rather than diving in like a cannon ball. For us, this means we’re working first on supporting the ability to log into the MatchKey.com site directly using OpenID, and will subsequently roll out integration via our partners.

Fortunately, more people every day are becoming familiar with the concept of single sign-on (SSO) in general, and OpenID in specific. This is, undoubtedly, in large part due to folks at Yahoo, Plaxo, and Google paving the way by introducing it to their users. Now that OpenIDs are in practice, within various implementations, users are encountering them with greater frequency.

Those who have used an OpenID are already familiar with the “authentication dance” that happens while logging into different sites. There are a number of permutations of this, but the process basically boils down to:

1. the user entering their OpenID into Site A,
2. being redirected to log into their OpenID provider,
3. being asked if it’s OK to log into Site A with the OpenID,
4. then being returned to Site A, now fully logged in.

It turns out not to be terribly complicated to roll this simple case into MatchKey.com. What becomes really interesting is when we explore the opportunity to extend this same concept within the context of a partner site. There are some technical hurdles, but even more importantly will be maintaining a solid user experience throughout the dance.

To make sure we do it right, we found someone who’s already hip deep in the identity management pool to help guide our effort. Asa Hardcastle is with Zenn New Media, a group working closely with Liberty Alliance, and is helping lead the charge in developing open source libraries for the Open Liberty project.

Even though we’re initially rolling out a relatively straight-forward OpenID “Relying Party”, it’s great to have someone with Asa’s wider experience on board. All gauges are green as we leverage the best of what OpenID has to offer today, while laying the foundation for emerging identity management standards.

Note: We’re fully aware that OpenID and Liberty Alliance (and by extension Open Liberty) aren’t necessarily solving the same problems (or in the same way). To many end users there are a lot of similarities, but there are quite a few differences (technically, and fundamentally). If you’re interested in the nuts and bolts, I suggest you follow the ongoing (and often heated) discussions taking place within the various communities. Feel free to ping me for a more nuanced view of the vast ocean of possibilities.