Building metaID - OpenID With Bells On

Tech writer Wayne Smallman, whose name graces these pages every so often, has hit on something that should be immediately obvious to anyone who has used more than a couple social networking and bookmarking sites (which is most of us) - registering with each one and creating a new profile every time is a pain in the neck.

What Wayne suggests is that the social networking sites must adopt an open identity standard. Something like OpenID, but better and more secure. What we need is meta-OpenID. As many OpenID users know you can use your own domain to prove who you say you are when logging into OpenID systems. Why not also provide all the profile information within that identity page (hidden and secured as necessary) on your domain space or in a standalone webpage. metaID would then identify you to a new social networking system, pull in the various fields it needs to fill to create your profile all in one fell swoop.

The metaID system would be transparent and transferable, allowing you to sign up with any social networking site quickly and easily but giving you, the user, full protected control of what data and information is transferred.