OpenID for a website - recommendation

Question

I am running few websites for my clients (not connected at all), all of them with separate registration of users. I am thinking about implementing OpenID sign in module for those websites. I am looking for the recommendation - what kind of website - maybe even part of website (regular/irregular customers of e-shop, website comments authorization, voting, content and video publishing etc) has more advantage in use of openid. Is that dependent also on the size of a website? - like small site has no advantage, large has advantage (or vice versa)?

UPDATE:

I read a few other threads about openid and found another related idea: multiple openids - for different parts of site - Example - e-shop: openid for comments and recommendations for products (users do not want to register because of commenting), but not for real customers shop there (they are too conservative and we do not want to lost deal). Does it make sense?

Answer 1

I think many people still consider OpenID to be a techy-oriented technology (it's not, many people have OpenIDs without realising it). Ask your clients what their primary audience is. Facebook Connect (does MySpace offer something similar?) could be a more popular option.

Personally I love comment systems that use OpenID, especially on blogs that I comment on frequently.

Answer 2

Duplicate (kinda): What reasons are there NOT to use OpenID?

Answer 3

Go and get the OpenID widget for your favorite toolkit (perhaps mention your toolkit next question?) and play with it. Its very easy to implement.

check out http://openid.net/developers/

edit: Addition based on comment

OpenID is suited for anything where you don't want to require your users to trust you. you're essentially saying: "hey, i can't ever loose your password, i don't have it".

That type of thing isn't really useful on webshops with creditcard payments because your users must already trust you to be willing to buy your gear.

It is however usefull for community sites, or just verifying comments. Especially good for all the "little things" that need authentication.

Answer 4

i guess small sites have a bigger advantage. many people wouldn't register on a site just to leave a comment, but when they have an openid they just need to log in. on big sites the incentive to register is bigger, because in most cases there's more you can do.

Answer 5

One of the biggest hindrances towards adopting a website is the friction to the user experience caused by the registration process. Look at StackOverflow - it is amazing how easy it is to start using the majority of the functionality without having to go through multiple steps of registration and providing unnecessary information.

To that effect, OpenID can be used to minimize the initial user experience friction. Let people do some basic stuff on your website anonymously. If these user's activities can benefit of being related to each other, allow them to use OpenID to identify themselves.

At some point, you will have to ask your users for some piece of information like their real name or their email. However, postponing this as much as possible gives them a chance to engage with your website and build an online presence there. Once this happens, the users have more incentive to provide to you that information.