SweetSpot’s Blog

I have written zero, zilch, nada about features as they are rolled out or tweaked on SweetSpot. Well, that is a serious omission for a company blog! Bad Adam; no biscuit.  There have been many changes going on and I’ll start to highlight them here.

Moving right along….

A continuing problem with websites is the need for you to have a separate username and password for each one.  Eight years ago, I had less than 10, including ones for nytimes.com and the SETI@Home project, which nobly used the computers in student labs on campus to crunch numbers in the quest for E.T., all the while boosting my national rankings in the quest of leading the SETI team computer rankings.  I’ve lost track how many I have today; dozens for work and probably hundreds for various sites on the internet.  I’ve utterly lost count.

While there have been numerous attempts to address this issue of password explosion, it has only been recently that this quest has hit its stride.  OpenID is one of these technologies, and it has incredible industry support.

But first thing first… what is OpenID?

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

Sounds good to me!  But the problem is that no one knows what OpenID is; I have google, facebook, myspace, and yahoo accounts… I want to use one of those!  Who cares about this ‘OpenID’ thing?  Well…!  I think we can have the best of both worlds.  Check out our new sign in page

Now you don't have to keep a separate name and password for SweetSpot

Want to use your account from Facebook?  No problem….

Lets use FaceBook

And that is all there is to it.  We no longer need to store a password; all we know is that you are using your Facebook account and Facebook has said you are who you say you are.

Secure and simple.  I suggest you try it out and let me know what you think!

The Details

I’ve been using this sort of sign in for awhile, where I can start using the same username and password from one site for a host of other services.  I’ve found it to be a pleasure to use.  While I use my Yahoo nickname to access a few sites, there are places where I can get my own OpenID, like at MyOpenID, that offer unique security options like allowing me to use my cellphone to make sure that the person logging into a site is really me.  Ahhh; that warms my paranoid heart!

But OpenID, at least for those of you who inhale tech news, has been around for almost three years and is sort of old news.  YAWN….!  We waited on implementing OpenID because

• It is still changing quite a bit.  The technical foundation is now fairly solid and quite secure, but how we as users interact and use OpenID is still changing quite a bit.
• Which leads to… OpenID can be confusing to use if you are not used to it.  It definitely failed the mom test (sorry mom; you have come a long way, but technology is not your strength ).  We are so used to entering a username and password that anything different requires us to stop and think, which for just getting access to an account is not a good thing.  Here is an opinionated piece on the usability weaknesses of OpenID, based upon the usability research undertaken by Yahoo.  Many are working on improving the usability, and experimenting with different approaches.  The sort of approach we are using at SweetSpot I believe strikes the right balance between the needed flexibility but also ease-of-use.
• It is not the only game in town, and because it is not owned by anyone (unlike Facebook Connect or Microsoft Live ID) some of the large companies only implement part of the OpenID spec or change it slightly to fit their needs.  For example, Google, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace, and Microsoft (to name just a few of the large corporations) all allow their members to generally their ID as an OpenID, but none of them allow an ID from someone else; i.e. Microsoft does not allow you to log into their services with a Google account, and vis a versa (surprise!)
• And last, and definitely most importantly, I only implemented OpenID support when a few folks asked for it (HINT HINT!).  As these things go, I got multiple requests from members asking for OpenID support, all within a matter of days (did you guys coordinate?!), and that was all it took!