It seems like the OpenID initiative is finally getting out of the theoretical and geeky circles and going mainstream.  When the giants start moving, you know something is up.  And we have seen the giants swarming to OpenID lately in a huge land grab and all trying to look like they are innovators.

Google, Yahoo, AOL, Plaxo, and others have been the latest biggies to sign on to convert at least part of their empires to support OpenID in one way or another.  Some providers, some relying parties, some both.  And I think now that almost everyone will already have an OpenID account (whether they know it or not) sites left and right are going to be implementing the login technology to their sites.

On my network of sites, MileSplit US, I decided that the stars were lining up and it was go time.  I certainly can read the writing on the wall and always hope to be someone known for pushing technology forward, instead of holding on to the past.  And with little effort yesterday I went from 0 to 60 and you can now attach an OpenID account to our account on MileSplit and login that way.  I am considering whether I want to take the next step and be a provider as well.

So the missing element, now that it looks like there will be an increasing number of sites implementing the technology in 2008, are the users!  Right now no one but us techies know what the heck OpenID is.  So I think the people pushing the initiative need to shift their focus from signing on developers to signing on users and educating the general public on OpenID.  Of course, signing on developers still needs to be a focus since more sites still need to implement it to make it truly truly killer.

It seems like it should be an easy sell though.  Manage your identity and logins in a single place.  No more remembering dozens of different logins.  I know I am constantly doing "reset your password" or "send me a reminder" features from user names/passwords I've long since forgotten.  I for one can't wait for the rest of this year to see how far OpenID goes!